


Potsherds from Tanis, a sequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark

by twistedchick



Category: Raiders of the Lost Ark
Genre: Egyptian archeology, Lost Ark, Multi, Pirates, Well of Souls, cast of thousands, cup, fake Anubis, jackal, medallion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-06
Updated: 2010-01-06
Packaged: 2017-10-05 21:33:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 45,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/46248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twistedchick/pseuds/twistedchick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marion Ravenwood lost Indiana Jones to the war, and moved on with her life, twice.  Now Dr. Henry Jones wants her to investigate the rumors he has heard about an archeological dig at Tanis, run by Rene Belloc's son.  What she finds will change her life -- again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Potsherds from Tanis, a sequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes it feels as if she's spent all her life traveling through someone else's stories.

### I.

Neither of them was meant to settle down. She is sure of that now, though she thought otherwise in the past. When they were younger, she thought they might, perhaps, travel the world together in search of fame, fortune and adventure.

The war had changed that, as it had changed so much.

* * *

Sulla and his wife still live in their three-story walk-up with their youngest daughter, several grandchildren, and a few nieces and nephews. Sulla is quieter now, but no less wise in the ways of archeologists. His son has inherited his title of the finest digger in Egypt; he has gone on to become an authority on the ways to discern ancient ruins from the contours of the landscape.

Sulla told her, the last time she visited, how he did it. "I listen for the footsteps."

"Which footsteps?" She isn't sure she wants to know. There have been too many.

"I listen for them, and they show me where to dig."

"That's a good way to do it." She relaxes again, glad he won't bring up that name again.

"Do you ever hear from ... Bellosch?"

His question surprises her. "No. I haven't seen him in years," she answers, with perfect honesty.

But she had never spoken to Sulla of what had happened that night on the island, when fire descended from heaven. Given this, it is not an unlikely question. Belloq had certainly seemed partial to her, for a while.

* * *

It all fell apart too quickly. The golden Ark was hidden in a warehouse, one wooden crate among too many, the gilded medallion vanished into one of Hitler's treasure hordes. Abner was buried, Belloq burned, and Indy ...

She can't think of Indy, not now.

She could go back to the Himalayas, although the political situation has officially closed them to her, but after the heat of Egypt she doesn't want to freeze again in the thin air.

But she can't bear to hold still.

* * *

Katanga greeted her with a sardonic smile and a tip of his cap, but his eyes narrowed with pleasure when she made her suggestion: she would act as his agent and find cargo for the ship, in return for room, board and a share of the take. She was given the cabin next to his, and a standing equal to his second-in-command among the crew, by his own orders. The crew members who had been there, so long ago, smiled to see her with them again.

The first man who tried something -- a new sailor Katanga had found on the docks at Piraeus -- found her faster and tougher than he dared imagine. After the ship's surgeon patched him back together, and after she demonstrated her marksmanship while scaring scavengers off a wreck Katanga's men were salvaging, she was given the respect she wanted, and the space to live her life without having to answer to anyone. Her word was trusted, and her thoughts given their due.

The sailor had been escorted off the ship by Katanga himself, accompanied by the taller and heavier members of the crew. She had gotten them good cargo, good work at a time when work was hard to find; they did not want to lose her.

For her part, she let her reputation precede her as the crew changed over time, and that served her well. She liked to stand at the rail, between her shifts at the wheel, watching the world pass, listening to the news from the radio.

Waiting, but not holding still.

* * *

"Not that Bellosch, but the son. There is a son. You did not know?"

She comes back from contemplating the golden sun over the hills and the stucco buildings. "Know what?"

"He has money, no one knows from where. Ahmed tells me he wishes to excavate Tanis."

She snorts, still managing to appear ladylike enough to appease Fayah, who has brought out more coffee and sits next to her husband. "He is very good looking," Fayah tells her. "But not as handsome as Dr. Jones."

"Nobody ever was," she says, and they nod.

* * *

Katanga certainly isn't as handsome, though he is gentle enough and skilled in giving and accepting pleasure. She takes care with him; he is the last friend who remains from that time, and she has learned to trust him with her emotions as well as with her investments, pirate though he is. Early on, she invested her share back in his salvage and trading business -- and between his trading skills and her expertise with rare objects they have prospered.

"You would leave me if he returned." He kisses a strand of her hair, threaded with silver now. She leans back against him, feeling his skin as damp with sweat as hers.

It is an old argument, one she is tired of hearing, but if she admitted this she would lose from the start.

"No."

He smiles and traces the lines of her neck and shoulders with his fingertips. "I know you." His lips follow the path of his fingers.

"He --" She still can't say his name, even now.

"I wouldn't keep you from him, if it happened." She can feel his smile deepen against her shoulder. "But I would fight for you, if you did not wish to go."

"Even if ... he's not coming back. You know that." She turns to kiss him, but as she turns back her eyes slide up to the dusty fedora on the hat rack, the one she picked up off the sand so long ago. Time and light have faded it. She could almost ignore the hole in the front, and the stain, from this angle. "And tomorrow we will make port, and I'll go deliver the shipment to Lucius."

"Wear the white. I have always liked the way you look in white, Maryon."

She chokes out a laugh that isn't as bitter as it sounds. "You wouldn't have liked how it looked after I'd been dragged across the desert in it."

"Even so, my fairest lady. Even so."

"Pirate." She turns back to straddle him and they begin, again, to pass the last free afternoon shift before port.

 

### II.

At first, after the Ark debacle blew up -- though not exactly in their faces -- they were together for a while. Indy taught at the University. She found a job in a bookstore nearby, which was better than being a secretary, and took an apartment a couple of blocks away, near what passed for downtown.

They had three years, barely, before he went on another dig --

"You idiot! There's a war on. Didn't you notice? A war! Have you lost what's left of your mind?"

"Marion --"

"You want to go digging up more bits of rubbish while they use you for target practice? Egypt's full of Nazis! All of North Africa's under fire. And you want to go on a dig?"

"If I don't rescue it, it'll be lost forever. This is the last trip, Marion, I promise. Really. The last one."

\-- and didn't come back.

She went after him, of course, in spite of the war. There were always ways. She found the hat, the glasses and the whip in a hot sandy room in a deserted village, with too much broken furniture and enough blood to make it hard to believe he might still have had any in him. The blood covered a small wooden box that she took back to the University and handed to Marcus Brody, the man who had sent Indy out.

She didn't tell Marcus what she'd had to do to get out of Casablanca. He knew enough not to ask.

She never looked, either inside the box or at the number on the check Marcus gave her. The clerk at the bank acted much more respectful after she deposited it than before. She allowed him one smile, to show him what he was missing, and left.

* * *

The phones are out again.

After several tries, she shrugs and tells Katanga she will deliver the cargo herself. Katanga smiles  
at her. "I suspect your heart is lost to me now. You have fallen in love."

"You never had it, you pirate. At least I lost it to someone who behaves himself as a gentleman."

Katanga laughs. "But not a horse of a different color, and that consoles me. Will I see you later?"

"You're taking me dancing, aren't you? I need to buy a dress."

The Marseilles air is crisp early in the morning, though it grows damp later in the day. She finds her way easily through the narrow streets, riding her cargo bareback and on a loose rein. Lucius and Mirielle, her clients, are overjoyed to greet them, and offer her coffee, croissants and apricots fresh from the espalliered tree.

After they finish with business they linger over the food. Lucius seems to be waiting for something. Mirielle chats with her about Dior's New Look, and thanks her again for bringing their precious cargo safely home.

"It was a pleasure," she tells them. "I love horses." This one in particular, whom she had visited every day and cared for personally, because he was afraid of the noises and the strange smells and hated being cooped up below decks. If he had not been going to Lucius and Mirielle, she would have found a way to keep him for herself. This one is like the first of his name, pure black without a white hair, a little small, shying at shadows, but he will never be ridden into battle. This Boukephalos will live in the green fields of Lucius's pasture, with as many mares as he wishes.

Lucius is already planning the careers of Boukephalos's unborn get. The pure Arab strain, crossed back into the old bloodline, will bring miracles, he's sure.

They don't ask about Katanga, but that's just as well. Everyone knows, and those who care or say they do have learned not to speak against him in her presence.

The sun drifts across the sky. "Out with it, Lucius," she finally says. "What aren't you telling me?" She wants to go to the bank, and then go shopping. Katanga is taking her dancing tonight.

He opens a small drawer in the nearby desk. "This came for you last week."

She takes the packet, addressed to her attention at their address. Marion Ravenwood O'Malley.

"How -- what --"

"A messenger brought it. Nobody I've seen before. Perhaps the letter will say?"

She doesn't recognize the handwriting.

* * *

After the University, she traveled. Work was easy enough to find during the war. She thought of enlisting, but she'd had enough of people shooting at her when she was in Egypt, and it would just have been more of the same. She did war work in a factory for a while, and that was enough.

By then she was in San Francisco, itching to travel, knowing she couldn't without too many questions being asked. It wasn't that bad a life, working at the aircraft factory just outside the city. And Peter O'Malley was there to keep her company and help the time pass.

He made her laugh, and she needed fun more than food by then.

Things speed up in wartime. They were married for six months when he was transferred to some little Pacific island from the admiral's office at the base.

He must have written her daily, but the letters arrived along with his effects box. A sniper bullet.

_We regret to inform you..._

She neither ate nor slept nor worked for two days. She slept, exhausted, the third day. On the fourth day she quit her job. She packed what she wanted to keep, sold the rest, took a train to New York and started looking for a certain ship.

* * *

She opens the packet -- a letter and, inside three envelopes for protection, a small box -- at a sidewalk cafe in early afternoon, after the waiter has taken away the empty omelette plate and left her coffee and cigarettes.

"I apologize for the lateness of this message, and for the delay in sending it, but I would appreciate it if you would visit me at your earliest convenience... staying at the Rue de ...something that I believe is yours..."

No, she doesn't know the handwriting, but the manner is familiar, though a little stuffy. She skims the rest for clues and is stopped by the thick lines of the signature.

Dr. Henry Jones.

It's quiet enough in the bar for her to make the call. Her hand shakes but she orders herself to be calm. She hasn't seen the man in 25 years, but she liked him. He is out, but the secretary tells her that her call was expected and if she could come tomorrow ...

She opens the package when she returns to her table. The afternoon sun, slanting between buildings, barely touches the rims of the glassware on the bar but it picks up the sparkle of the golden wings, the crystal center that has not dimmed in three thousand years, the fierce ruby eyes. It is still on the chain that Abner found for it a lifetime ago, when he gave it to her.

Now she knows she must see Henry Jones, if only to find out how, and why.

She lifts the chain over her head, and the medallion settles back between her breasts as if it had never left, heavy and warm with the sunlight.

 

### III.

 

The dress is enough like Dior to salve her conscience -- sleek bodice, miles of silk in the skirt.

"It's to make up for the austerities of war," the woman at the dress shop told her. "But you will wear smaller jewelry?"

"I don't take off my medallion any more," she says.

The woman nods slowly. "Then perhaps in this color... unless you think it too much."

In her lifetime, she has worn red harem pants, embroidered blouses, heavily quilted mountain jackets, and proper gray suits with proper gray hats and gloves -- as well as Indy's shirts. Someone else always bought the white dresses, and they never lasted. It is an old joke with Katanga, the white dresses. He has told her he fell in love with her when he saw her in white satin on his deck.

"Right. You just noticed I wasn't wearing anything under it."

"Maryon, you are wrong." He rises on one elbow, leans down to kiss a pink nipple. "I noticed -- what man would not -- but I saw the fire in your eyes as that swine pulled you away."

"Ah. You fell for my eyes. That's a good one."

"It's all good. Let me remind you of this again..."

So now she considers color. Not white, even with the black accents. Not the green, which she has come to associate too much with work clothes aboard ship. Not the red this time, though at another time that flame brightness would warm her heart as it emptied her pocketbook.

This time it's the yellow, the heavier silk that glows in the color of the medallion, neither hiding nor displaying it unduly. It is as if the dress and the antique were made for one another.

She takes the dress with her and thinks about shoes.

* * *

"We did well," Katanga tells her when she returns to the ship. "A bonus for getting everything here unbroken." He is sitting out on deck, taking in the sun, relaxing, reading something printed in a language she never learned.

"Good. I assume we'll be here for a while?"

"We could be. The docking fees are minimal." He shrugs one ironwood shoulder. "You have plans?"

"I have an appointment." She hands him the letter and he adjusts the gold-rimmed glasses on his nose before peering at it.

"This is the father, yes? Ah. And he has sent you -- oh my."

"It was mine from my father years ago. Abner and Henry were together on the dig when it was found."

Katanga's eyes are sharp, but his expression is kind. "Do you wish me to take the next trip without you?"

"I don't know." She is biting her lip, the way she has always done when uncertainty attacks. "Let me talk with him tomorrow."

He tips his hat back to squint up at her against the bright light. "Should I send a bodyguard to accompany you?"

"To guard me from Henry? He's got to be in his eighties by now, or older. And this letter is very proper."

"He's a Jones." But Katanga is teasing her, and she knows it.

"I can handle one Jones all by myself; I always have." She tucks the medallion back under her shirt. "Now, you're not getting out of taking me dancing after you've promised it for the whole trip."

"I would never dream of it. Omo will keep the watch tonight. You know why?"

"Because Omo doesn't dance."

Omo is shy, and hates crowds, but she will take him to lunch while they are in port and take him shopping, and make sure he will not feel left out.

* * *

It's a new club, in a section of town away from the dockside taverns they know, but nobody raises an eyebrow when she and Katanga and the crew enter, all in their best clothes. This is France, after all, not America. The cabaret show is entertaining, and after they eat they go to another club and another, checking out the music, dancing to jazz and blues and the French version of big band that has fewer horns and more acerbic sweetness, like sun-warmed oranges.

Her dress glows in the dark rooms, and she knows that if she were trying to be noticed, trying to create an effect, she could not have done better than to come with Katanga and the crew around her -- but she is with them because they're her friends, her family now that she has no other. She dances with Katanga first, but she dances with Ali and Soud and Nikami and Tomas as well, over the course of the evening. Some of the others, like Omo, do not dance; others have left by now to pursue their own amusements.

They end up near dawn at a small cafe by the docks, eating enormous breakfasts before they head back aboard ship. She and Katanga order a breakfast to take back to Omo when they leave.

When she falls into her bunk she remembers to set the alarm for noon. Good thing the meeting's in the afternoon.

* * *

Dr. Jones is waiting for her in a large suite. "Marion, my dear, " he says as he rises to greet her. "You look just like your mother." He takes her hands and she kisses his cheek before they settle in adjoining chairs near a table set for a high tea.

"You look wonderful," she tells him, and means it. Other than the white hair, he hasn't aged much since she was a child; he is still gruff and hearty and absurdly shy in his own way. "Thank you for sending back my medallion." She is wearing it openly, with a soft-collared man-tailored shirt and a proper dark suit.

"As do you, my child, as do you. And I'm grateful for the opportunity to give it back to you; I know Abner meant for you to keep it." He harrumphs mildly and offers her tea? sandwiches? biscuits? She chooses from the assortment and stirs her tea with a silver spoon.

She has learned, over the years, how to wait a man out.

"The government's had me cataloging artworks and artifacts seized by the Nazis, as they turn up here and there."

"That must keep you busy," she commented. "Is that where you found this?"

"Yes, yes. I just managed to get it back before it could be shipped to an exceedingly irritating man, a Dr. Alexandre Belloq. I expect you've heard of him."

In her mind she still sees Belloq, wearing robes like a costume, walking toward the golden Ark and daring to open it. Daring to be dissatisfied with its contents. She watched him until Indy told her to shut her eyes. But she heard him scream...

"I knew his father somewhat," she managed to say.

"Yes, erm. Well, young Alexandre's got a bug in his ear about Tanis, just like his father, and is likely to cause as much trouble. You did a good job back then, my dear." He leaned forward to pat her hand. "You kept it out of Hitler's hands."

"Maybe we should've let him have it," she murmured, thinking of the sounds of wind and fire and screaming, and the maddening wild purr of the generator before it exploded. The inexplicable roar of the windstorm that scoured away the ropes but never scratched her skin. "I think things like that take care of themselves. Holy things, Not that I know a lot about it, I mean ..." She is floundering now, unsure.

"But you're right. You're absolutely right. Truly holy things do take care of themselves, and they do not let themselves be used by those who are evil." He pours more tea for her. "Now, I realize you have no formal training in archeology, though you've got a great deal more background than most of my graduate students. I was wondering if you'd be willing to undertake a commission for me."

She thought quickly. "I'd need maps, of course, and some sort of diversion, but I suspect we could do it."

"Do what?"

"Recover the Ark, if that's what you want. It's in a cave in Pennsylvania; I have a good idea where."

Henry Jones laughs, a throaty rich sound, and she remembers what she once saw in his son. "My dear, in the position I'm in at the moment, if I told the government that I needed to see it, they'd wheel it out on a silver platter. Things have changed since 1939. No, no, the Ark is safer where it is right now. I would like to ask you to go to Tanis, to look into what this Alexandre Belloq is doing and let me know what he has found."

"I could just get word to Sulla --"

"No, no, I'd prefer to know what you see. You are more observant, my dear. I would be willing to arrange for you to be awarded you a degree if that would help, a doctorate in archeology."

"I don't need a degree, thanks." But she's touched. "Why? What can possibly be --"

For the first time Henry Jones looks away from her.

"Oh."

"They never did find -- And I'm stuck here -- and --"

She remembers how kind this quiet man had been to her, in the days when Abner would be so fascinated by his latest dig that he'd forget to eat, let alone to care for her. Her mother had died by then, after putting her hand down on an asp unawares. Henry Jones had made sure she was happy, and had told his son to keep an eye on her.

Regardless of her feelings, she owes this man.

"I can leave at the end of the week, if I take ship. Will that be soon enough?"

He nods, overcome, and she puts her hand over his.

"It doesn't matter how long it takes, I just need to know. And I know I can trust you, Marion."

* * *

It's been fifteen years since the Ark went into obscurity, twelve since Indy disappeared, ten since she was widowed.

It all feels as if it happened a day ago -- find the Ark at dawn on the hilly deserted island near Thera, find the little box at ten a.m. in a deserted village, find the letter in the mail in San Francisco at 1 p.m., sail the seas with Katanga for the evening, and now it's morning again.

And she's going back.

* * *

"I will have to make arrangements for my business," she tells Henry Jones, who nods. "I am a co-owner of an import firm."

"Yes, I've heard. You specialize in transportation of rare or precious cargoes" He's giving her the fatherly look again. "Isn't that a bit dangerous?"

She chokes back a laugh. "Not as much as some things I've done. I like living aboard ship. I like traveling."

"And you're a born businesswoman with a sharp eye, as well as beauty. That was you in the gold dress at the Tropicaine, last night, wasn't it?"

"Yes -- oh, you should have joined us. Katanga and the others would be delighted to meet you."

It's true they're smugglers and pirates, but most are also educated men who love a good discussion. Nikami, in particular, was in love with the myths and stories of every culture and spent his time off duty scribbling tales in a rough journal. He would occasionally read them to her in the hoarse, ruined voice left him by a gunshot wound, and she'd listen intently. It was as if Abner were alive again, reading her bedtime stories of Queen Hatshepsut or the Hittites, that same rising and falling voice weaving dreams. Nikami would have worshipped at the feet of a man who knew all the old stories as well as Henry Jones did.

"I'd like that very much, my dear, but I didn't think it was politic. Oh, no, no, not you. And I don't know Mr. Katanga, but I have heard good things of him from Sulla. It's me." His voice dropped. "I have been under observation by a number of people since I began work on the Nazi treasures, and I didn't want you and your people to be under suspicion because on my account."

"We can take care of ourselves, Henry, but thank you." She looks more closely at him. "This isn't the usual governmental sneaking around, is it?"

"I -- don't know. I don't have the feel for it that I once did. Marcus would be able to tell, but Marcus -- you heard about Marcus?" She shook her head. "Heart attack He went very quickly but -- Anyway, I'm not as young as I used to be, so I must be more careful."

"Of course." He doesn't look his age, whatever it is. She tries to calculate, and comes up with a number that must be at least a decade shy of reality. "How do you want me to contact you?"

"I can trust a very few people these days," he tells her. "Send someone over tomorrow, carrying this. I'll have a packet and instructions ready." He hands her a ushabti, an inexpensive clay figurine of Sekhmet. "I'll give the person carrying this figurine a box containing pieces of a patterned tile, supposedly from the site of Alexander's palace in Alexandria. It's actually a good-quality fake made in Greece a couple of centuries ago. When you have definite news, send me word with one of the smaller pieces of the tile, and I'll know it's true. Send several pieces at once, or the very largest piece by itself, and I'll come there immediately."

"More spies." More boys with games and gamepieces.

"Precisely so, And now, I regret to say, you should leave. An hour or so is about as long as a visit to your father's friend should last, don't you think?"

"I'll send someone tomorrow. Katanga, if he's available."

He kissed her cheek. "Good. Good. And you take care, young Marion. Don't let that medallion out of your sight again. Just think what trouble it caused last time."

"Well, I learned to shoot an aircraft machine gun, so it wasn't a complete loss." But she hugged him back.

* * *

Fussy, extravagant, tweedy little Marcus gone; it's a shock, though it shouldn't be. He'd had heart problems for years, probably exacerbated by worries about Indy's adventures. And hers, to be honest. He'd admired her, and told her once that she was much the best thing he'd ever seen Indy bring back from abroad.

She'd accepted the compliment, and replied, "And I dust myself, too."

"Quite the advantage over the average museum piece, believe me."

She'd have to find out what happened to his books and things; he was still storing some of Indy's belongings from before the war. But that was for later.

For the first time, she wondered just what was in that little wooden box she'd brought back to Marcus that could have been worth what was paid for it.

 

### IV.

 

When she wakes the next morning, she calls Henry Jones from the pay phone on the dock and manages to catch him between meetings.

"I think you're right. I'll need the degree for credibility."

"That's not a problem." The roughness in his voice thickens, but he coughs and gains control. "If you can write me a list of the digs you've been on, and two pages of your ideas and observations from them, I'll take them in lieu of dissertation."

She can do that easily; she can even list from memory the books she read when she worked in that hole-in-the-wall bookstore. "What about defense?"

"I'll waive it for the time being. You can defend it when I see you again. As soon as you give me your papers, I'll forward the proper forms to the University of Paris. That's where I'm officially attached at the moment."

"Thanks."

"No, thank you, Dr. Ravenwood."

"Better make it Dr. O'Malley. Less confusing."

"Confusion is only for the enemy," Henry tells her, his tone sincere.

* * *

"When?" Katanga asks. They are in the office, going over paperwork and maps.

"A few days. You can manage without me." She has sent Nikami to carry the ushabti, and her lists of books and digs and her three pages of ideas and theories. He should be back soon.

"I may choose not to manage," he told her. "Egypt is not what it was before the war. The Islamic nationalists are causing problems again. A woman alone, a Christian woman, would not be safe."

"I don't have to look Christian," she reminds him, and he knows she's right. Dark hair, dark eyes, skin only a little lighter than Sulla's wife. In the proper clothes, she would blend in. Even her gray eyes would not betray her if she wore the right things -- a thousand years later, the descendants of crusaders still walk the streets in some neighborhoods. Her Arabic was always Egyptian, not the cultured accents of the wealthy but the language of diggers and shopkeepers in the souk.

"But you will have to look Western to deal with this Belloq on the dig." He drums the end of his pencil against the desk. "I don't like it, Maryon."

"I can take care of myself."

"I have no doubt of that -- but perhaps someone should go along to protect the Egyptians from you. I have heard tales of the destruction you caused. It was marvelous. Fires, explosions, shootings."

"I don't cause destruction, it just happens." She shrugs but grins. He's coming around. "Rumors. On-the-job training always causes a few problems."

"Especially when it is combined with weapons and gasoline and a spark. No, no, let me rephrase it." He studies her, and she realizes again something she already knew. "I would like to come along, and visit the land of my ancestors. Will that be acceptable?"

"Your ancestors?"

Katanga has never spoken of his family, not in a decade. For all she knew, Sulla invented him out of the air on that dark quay. Sulla could do that; he knows everyone.

"My mother's mother was from Cairo, and I have not returned there in many years. If Sulla has no room for us, my family will find room."

"Without trouble?" She has to ask, though she hates the question.

"Without trouble. We are business partners, are we not? And friends?"

"I wouldn't want my famous destructive talents to affect your family." She is serious. Trouble does follow her around; it always has.

Katanga is at ease again, now that she has conceded. "We can sail up the Nile that far without trouble this season; if all else fails we may sleep aboard ship and I can arm the crew."

And with this she is content.

* * *

Nikami meets her in the galley, where she is thinking about supplies that must be bought and considering whether to replace the old enamel coffeepot with something less worn.

"Your Dr. Henry Jones is a marvel," he tells her. "He asked me to sit and talk with him over tea." He hands her the packet -- two envelopes and a box that rattles a little.

"And did you?"

"I told him some of my stories, and he wanted to hear more. He showed me what he is translating, and I helped him." Nikami's eyes are bright. "Do you think --"

"Yes, if Katanga agrees. We will be leaving soon for Cairo."

"Cairo?" Nikami blinks. "I thought we were going to Rabat or Dakar. Or Cyprus."

"Do you want to wait out this trip?"

Nikami speaks French as well as he speaks anything else. She can't grudge him his opportunity, if he has one.

"I -- yes."

She will call Henry Jones and make sure there's no mistake. Nikami is worldly wise in his own world, but that world is not the one in which he would move should he stay.

"If Katanga says."

"Merci, madame." He bows to her, deeply, formally, but bounces on his way out the door, and she remembers that he's only in his early twenties and was injured when he was too young to be a soldier.

But the invitation is there, in the second envelope, hastily scrawled. Joseph Nikami is invited to stay with Dr. Henry Jones to assist in his translation work for two months, or until their ship comes back for him, and in return for the assistance he will receive room and board and a stipend. She knows Henry won't let anyone starve or be lost; she can trust him for that.

And it might be useful to have one of Katanga's men with Henry, just in case. Nikami is a French citizen, from his birth in French West Africa; that could always be handy.

* * *

She makes time, in the midst of preparations for the next trip, to cable Marcus's assistant -- whose name she had to look up but whom Henry assures her is still there -- and inquire whether Indy's boxes are still in storage. The assistant cables back immediately, apparently overjoyed to find someone who will take them; he has had no idea what to do with them. She cables back enough money for him to have them shipped to Dr. Henry Jones in Marseilles, and sends a note to Henry to expect them, with a promise to go through them with him when she returns, if he wishes. His three-word reply -- "Yes. Thank you." -- is enough.

* * *

"You have never told me what happened to Belloq," Katanga says, the night before they raise anchor. The crew is ashore; she is on watch, and Katanga has returned early.

"I don't really know. I assume he's dead." She is gazing at the reflection of the harbor lights on the oily water.

"You assume?"

So she tells him as much as she can recall, the little she saw, the lights that seemed to burn through her eyelids, the sounds and smells and sensations that followed.

"And you and Dr. Jones lived through this." He nods slowly. "I knew there was something magical about that white satin negligee." She shoves his arm, and he chuckles. "But no body was ever found, was it?"

"There were more than thirty men there. We were the only ones who walked away alive."

Katanga shivered in the warm air. "These things are mysteries; who can know?" He put an arm around her shoulders. "But you know nothing of the son, or the family?"

"They have a vineyard, somewhere in Algeria. White wine. I had some of it, once upon a time." When he raises an eyebrow at her, she continues, "I don't believe it has protective powers.

Katanga inclined his head, thinking. "They have money, this family, Belloq was a collaborateur; is the son?"

"Too young, I think. I wish Henry would tell me what he really wanted me to look for."

"Perhaps it was not safe for him to do so, even there."

She is even more glad, thinking of this, that Nikami will be staying with Henry Jones.

And, at dawn, she is glad to set sail from Marseilles and turn her face to the east, even if it means walking back into a past she once swore she would never revisit.

* * *

During the trip, she spends her time catching up on the news from Egypt, from the political scene to the archeological gossip. It's all a matter of where to look and how to read between the lines. She brushes up on her technical Egyptian, the language used on work sites, and pages through a book on hieroglyphs that her father wrote decades ago.

It won't be enough, she knows, but it will help. It would help more if she knew what she was looking for, but that's impossible for now.

Katanga must have said something to the crew. The men cluster around her more protectively than usual, even the young ones. Most of the older crew were there when she was taken by the Nazis at gun point; they saw Indy's heroic swim to the submarine, and cheered him as he hung onto its top rail.

They didn't know that he spent a day and a night out there, hiding on the narrow abovedeck of the sub, without food or water, or the final result of his mad scheme to recover the ark and herself, in whatever order.

Even Katanga didn't know what had happened during that time, belowdecks, between herself and Belloq.

A little knowledge is enough, almost too much. Some of the crew tell stories of heroism to the rest; the men worry about her and the danger she might meet ashore in Cairo. The ship belongs to Katanga and to her by law and money, but she belongs to the crew in a way that has nothing to do with Katanga or the bed they share. She represents them on shore, gets them good contracts, makes certain they are paid on time, bails them out of jail and patches them up when they got into fights.

They are her family, her friends, the way Sulla and Fayah and their children are.

She never interferes with Katanga's dealings with them, or with his way of keeping ship's discipline. That was between him and them, and incidents are, thankfully, rare. The one incident of theft a few years ago by a new crew member was discovered by another one and  
punished by the rest of the crew before she even found out about it. Katanga took care of it when she was ashore evaluating a wealthy client's collection for transport, and by the time she returned in the evening the thief had gone, the goods had been recovered and Ali's shy second cousin Omo was replacing him.

She can drink every one of them, including Katanga, under the table, even now. They respect her abilities at negotiation and her understanding of the world ashore, but this makes them love her.

 

### V.

Alexandria never changes. Fewer buildings there, new construction in another place, but always of the same pale stone from which everything is made. As they pass the harbor and head for the mouth of the Nile, it is a dingy, lumpy cream counterpane quilting the low hills and the delta.

The muezzins call the faithful to prayer with their own voices and with loudspeakers. She would swear that one of them was using a record player, as the voice seems to skip and she can hear a distinct needle pop at regular intervals.

Some of the crew pray five times a day. Some pray once or twice, or not at all. It has never been an issue on the ship; what a man chooses is his own business, between himself and Allah.

"Allah allows records?" she asks Soud later, as he coils a line on deck.

Soud smiles, gap-toothed from a brawl in Tobruk. "It is still the voice, the call to prayer, no? Perhaps the muezzin is ill."

She nods, thinking much more may have changed than she expected.

* * *

They offload cargo -- a shipment of artifacts for the museum, war booty being returned by order of Dr. Henry Jones (probably over the loud screams of the University of Paris archivist) -- and take on fresh food for the crew and a shipment of construction timber originally from the Black Forest. No live cargo, this time.

Since she is unneeded on ship -- Katanga will accompany the artifacts while Hassan will log the cargo and oversee the fresh food he has ordered as cook -- she goes ashore, taking a taxi most of the way for speed, to what she thinks of as the heart of the city.

The tomb of Alexander, atop its hill, glows with the heat of late morning. She walks around it anyway, though she feels the stones burning through her sandals. For luck. Luck works for her, when she respects it.

Alexander was an outsider here, too, trying to make sense of a culture ancient to him, trying to learn. She can imagine Indy meeting him, the two of them talking about what they have found, what they have learned, what is left to know. They would have been good friends, she thinks.

It is not as hard to think of Indy here, to give him a name instead of the specific capitalized pronoun in the back of her mind. This is where he belonged, not in stuffy classrooms or long meetings.

"Help me find out the truth." she prays. And why not, when Alexander was considered a god in his own time? Gods die; the old gods of the Upper and Lower Kingdoms are only stories now in this day of Allah. But Alexander is still here, the boy from Macedon who wanted to see the world, and although she knows he won't hear her she asks anyway, comforted by the presence of another outsider who had loved the same land that Indy loved.

* * *

Outside the city, as they move upstream, the long stretches of small farms reappear. Oxen or buffalo pull plows for men in long tunics or loincloths. Small dhows scurry around them. Old barges float majestically downstream, laden with cut stone, as if the Pharaohs had ordered it. The old ways continue here; when they stop for the night and go ashore at a village, they are invited to the headman's house for a meal. They bring packaged food from France as a gift -- a cheese and some pickled relishes, which are appreciated, but no wine, which would not be.

She listens to the hum of voices around her, paying attention to the discussion of politics as she politely murmurs something to the headman's wife and daughter, with whom she sits. That's a problem with the old ways, but it has its advantages. Katanga knows her thoughts, and steers the conversation toward archeology. He and the others will remember what is said and tell her when  
they return to the ship, so that she will have lost nothing by listening to the discussion of new methods of educating children or the problems with buying olives from the next village, which always taste slightly musty.

Later, back at the ship, she catches Hassan putting a krater of olives into the galley and reads the label. "Keep these for trade," she tells him. "I've heard they're not that good."

* * *

It's true. A man named Belloq has received permission from the Director of Antiquities to dig in the area the Germans occupied near Cairo. He is having trouble getting workers; stories of afreet and ghosts on the site are well known.

When she asks further, Ali tells her he overheard the headman's son say something under his breath about lights moving at night, and screams in the distance. She shudders in spite of herself, remembering, but nods encouragingly at him and asks what he thinks.

"I think they are villagers, who don't know anything. Have they ever seen electric lights?"

Omo adds, "They have not sent any men to dig; these stories are from their cousins' cousins' cousins' friends."

"What about the one about the jackal?" Hassan asks.

Ali dismisses it with a shrug. "It is the nature of jackals to make odd noises and run around. What else would they do with their time?"

"But the tale of the giant jackal seen at night --"

"They are just villagers. Ignore it, Sitt Maryon."

She nods thoughtfully and thanks them, and they smile. They have always been interested in what she does, as they believe her success reflects well on them.

They encouraged Nikami's writing with the same attitude, though there was a division among the men over whether writing stories that were not true was proper for an honest man. But this was kept from Nikami. They all know him, and trust him, and believe he will someday be famous so they will be able to brag about him. Several of the men sent letters to him from Alexandria, one line or two so he would know he is remembered, and missed.

She is coming to realize that this support may make the difference between success and failure on this trip. For one thing, Belloq will not expect that a woman would have such assistance. He might expect she'd have help from Sulla -- everyone knows Sulla -- but not the phalanx of interested parties that will walk in the shadows with her.

* * *

She sits on deck, watching the land move past slowly, thinking of how she will look and talk, of how she will find what she is looking for -- and how she will know it when she finds it.

The first she knows of Katanga's presence is his warm hands on her shoulders. "You are thinking too much." His voice rumbles in his chest.

"I have to have a plan, or at least some idea of what to do."

He leans down to kiss her forehead. "You will find what you seek. You will triumph, Maryon. Allah wills it."

"How do you know what Allah wills?" She is querilous, tired, stressed even before the need for it. He strokes her face, the side of her neck, and tangles his fingers in her hair.

"I'm not a religious man, not like Farah or Soud, but I know what the Prophet says, Is it not true that Allah favors the pure of heart?" His hands are back on her shoulders, but inside her embroidered blouse, rubbing her neck muscles gently. "I believe that this commission of yours, this quest for Dr. Jones, is a pure-hearted thing. You cannot gain anything from it for yourself; you do it because an old man has asked you to do what he cannot. And because of this, you cannot fail."

"I wish I believed that." She has grown quieter under his touch, as she always does, but the worry remains.

"You have Allah on your side. You also have me, and the crew. And K'sander, am I right? You went to his tomb in Alexandria."

"Yes."

"As you did before we journeyed to India two years ago. We prospered from that trip. I cannot believe K'sander would desert you or ignore you when you ask in his own city for help in his own land."

"Maybe you're right," she admits. "Who is on watch?"

"Ali. He told me you were studying too hard."

A gurgling laugh escapes her. "We don't have a crew, Katanga, we have twenty worrying mothers."

"And mothers-in-law, undoubtedly. Some attach themselves to you, and some to me. That is the way it is." His own low chuckle rumbles. "And so, to ease Ali's mind, come to bed."

"All right." She smiles as she puts aside the notebook on the stack of references she has been consulting. "Ali should not have to worry." She waves at the bridge, and Ali waves back at her, a gleam of teeth against dark skin. "Do they also tell you what to do to help me sleep?"

"Sometimes, but I only take the good suggestions."

She is still laughing when they close the door behind them.

 

### VI.

  
Sulla and Fayah welcome her with open arms. Of course, it is not too much trouble. The boys are off at the university, and most of the daughters are married, the house is too empty. Katanga must stay as well.

"Unfortunately, not this time, my friend," Katanga tells Sulla. "It would not be safe for her."

Sulla frowns. "How much trouble do you expect?"

"I don't know." She has been over this with Katanga already, and she worries that dividing their forces among his family and Sulla's will cause problems. "I don't want Belloq to know how involved I am with the ship. If he is anything like his father, he would use that against me."

She means the crew, not the metal ship, but Sulla nods understanding. "I will accompany you myself when you go to the dig. If I am not available, my son will go as your assistant. He's a bright boy; he can catch up on his studies later."

Katanga nods slowly.

She seeks out the face of Sulla's second son, who must be the image of his father in his mid-twenties, and receives a smile. This is the son who will become a doctor one day. "I would be pleased to serve as your assistant, whenever possible."

"Thank you --"

"Yusuf," he supplies. "I know, there are so many of us."

"Bring a notebook so you can take notes, and write everything you notice. Can you write in another language?" She is planning this campaign, not charging in as she might have in the past. This time, it will go better.

Yusuf rattles off a few words each in six languages as they listen. "Stop, which is that?" Sulla asks. "I do not recognize it."

"It's Cantonese," she says, surprised.

Yusuf shrugs. "Who knows where a doctor may travel? I try to stay ahead of the game." His eyes twinkle. "I can write it phonetically in any number of ways; that should confuse people, no?" He demonstrates, in flowing Arabic script and Roman letters and in an odd scrawling form that she has not seen in years. "Shorthand, from England. Secretaries use it. It is phonetic too, but most  
Egyptians cannot read it."

"Perfect."

"You have a wise son, Sulla," Katanga rises and moves toward the carved door. "I will go now and see to the crew."

"If your cousins have no room for them, they may sleep here. Remember this." Fayah tells him this all the way to the street.

She can hear his smile in his voice as he leaves.

"A good man," Sulla says quietly. "I admit I was worried about you, some years ago, but not after I heard you were with him."

"Is everyone trying to take care of me?" She doesn't know whether to be amused or exasperated.

"But of course. One always tries to take care of a great treasure." Sulla's gallantry makes her smile, all the more because Fayah nods in agreement as she returns. "Now, what are our plans for tomorrow?"

* * *

Later that night, she sits by candlelight and thinks of what Katanga has said about the purity of her heart and the work she is trying to do. She's not convinced that he was right. Her own motives seem as muddy as the Nile at flood stage, one ugly thing after another floating to the surface and submerging again in the fast current.

She can't sort out her feelings for him; she's tried for years. He can't still be alive, can he? How could she have traveled the world all this time and never found one word from anyone to tell that he lived?

Her feelings for Belloq have always been simpler to parse. She had liked him at first, enjoyed the flirtation and the pretense of friendship, but she knew from the start that he was not to be trusted. He would do what he said he would do, but when stopped by anyone else he would shrug and give up, take the cold and easy way out.

She never told Indy what happened inside the submarine that he clung to, that long day and night between her capture by the Nazis outside Alexandria and their landing at the rocky, unnamed Greek island.

"Are you ... all right?" he'd asked.

"I'm here."

She couldn't say any more, and he knew enough not to ask. Over the next few years he melted away much of the ice that Belloq had put into her soul. Later, Peter O'Malley had taken away most of the rest.

Now only a fragment of ice remains within her, and she lets herself realize it, touch it, feel its sharp broken edge. She knows she will use it against Alexandre without a qualm, if it suits her purpose.

And, as she has done so often in the past twelve years, she send out a thought of Indy, a wish for a sense of him to float back to her on any convenient wind. It never has. She knows she's a fool to do it still, but she does it. This is her compromise, her apology for moving on without him in her life a second time.

* * *

The bright morning sun gilds the land as she and Sulla walk toward the dig. She wears practical shoes but her most impressive and understated suit, with the medallion tucked demurely beneath a blouse and jacket. She knows she looks every inch the academic, and hopes it will cause enough distraction so that she won't have to pull out the gun she has hidden in her purse, or the tiny dagger that Fayah has secured in her rolled-up hair, disguised as an ornate hairpin.

The silhouette of the man standing on the rising land makes her breath catch in her throat, and Yusuf supports her arm as she stumbles. But she has recovered in a second, smiles thanks at him, and moves ahead.

"Dr. Belloq, I presume?"

The man in the hat turns toward her and walks down the rough steps. No, not a man but a boy -- when did she start to think of men in their late twenties as boys? she must stop this now -- with sun-paled hair, golden tan and the same ice-gray eyes as his father. "Oui. Alexandre Belloq. And you, madame, are --"

"Dr. O'Malley, University of Paris." More or less. She sends thanks to Henry for filing her papers at a place whose records were so disturbed during the war that nobody will ever be able to figure out when she received her degree. "The Minister of Antiquities suggested that I visit your dig. I'm extremely interested in antiquities from this era." He is watching her with a smile, though his eyes seem calculating. It might simply be that he is unused to the strength of the light. She wishes she could knock that fedora off his head once and for all, but restrains herself and smiles back. "I've been asked to write something for the Journal about it."

"Then I'm honored." Alexandre's bow is much like Rene's was, but with more charm. "What do you know of the history of Tanis? Is that your primary area of interest?" He gestures toward an open tent. "Come, have some refreshments; I was just about to take a break."

"May my secretary observe your excavation?"

"Of course. I have nothing to hide. Go where you will, ask what you wish," Alexandre tells Yusuf, who bows to him and to her and goes off, notebook and pen at the ready. "You were saying?"

Careful. Don't know too much. Don't know anything that can't be traced or documented.

"I know the old stories of Tanis, of course. Wasn't some excavation done here during the war? I saw an article somewhere about the Well of Souls." She found that yesterday in an old journal article from the University.

"I'm not sure they actually found it then. Water? Lemon? Tea?"

She accepts lemonade, and a seat on a folding chair. "Really." She frowns. "I'm probably thinking of a different dig. Wasn't there a map room?"

"Oh, yes, over there." He waves a hand to the left, toward a small rise. "That's a marvel; I'll make sure you see it. It shows a map of the entire city from antiquity, But the key to it has unfortunately been lost."

The medallion -- the headpiece to the Staff of Ra that Indy told her he used to determine where to dig -- rests warmly against her skin under the shirt. She leans back slightly in the chair, hoping that her pose portrays only calm interest.

"That's too bad. I would like to see the map room, perhaps bring a camera back to get a picture of it if you have no objection?"

"I can see none. You will allow me to arrange lighting, so that the remainder of the original paint in the chamber will not be damaged?"

"Of course."

He smiles, apparently taken with her. "And here I had thought that the outside world cared little for my work. So much of what is done in archeology seems to disappear, as if down a bottomless chasm. More lemon?" He refills her glass. "For instance, an enormous stone ring was found several miles away by some Americans in the twenties, and carted away without being studied. Who knows where it is now?"

"That's a pity." She turns resolutely back to topic. "Have you discovered any mummies?"

"Only the most common sort. Everything mummifies out here, you know, given enough time. The lack of moisture, the minerals in the sand." He shrugs. "Fifty years from now I'll probably resemble any one of them."

"I doubt that," she said. Why not flirt, if it gains her what she wants. "Or, perhaps you might look like Ramses or Seti I."

"With this nose?" He shows her his chiseled profile, and she has to agree that his nose is too small to make the comparison work.

She puts the empty glass down and rises. "I don't want to keep you from your work, Doctor --"

"Alexandre, please." Another smile.

"Alexandre, then. You must call me Mary." It's close enough to her own name, yet unremarkable. Mary O'Malley could be anyone.

"Please, Look around, go where you will. Bring your camera tomorrow. How long will you be staying in the area?"

"That's uncertain at the moment." At last, something she can answer honestly.

"Then I hope to take you to dinner at Shepheard's one of these evenings."

Will he never go back to work so she can look around?

"I'd like that. I haven't been there in years."

"Oh?" Surprise. "I assumed that you were staying there."

"I am visiting old friends."

He smiles again. She is starting to wonder if he hasn't noticed the small amount of silvering in her black hair, or if he's one of those with a particular yearning for older women. Or if he's such an archeologist that age never matters.

When he bows her out of the tent, tips his hat to her and goes to talk with a digger who is waving to him, she hopes her relief doesn't show. She catches Yusuf's eye and they converge on the main excavation, where she listens with a professional manner as the head digger rattles off the history of the work and what has been found.

Her eyes, as usual, are independent of her ears; she can listen without betraying her interest elsewhere. In the hustle-bustle of the site, she notices a few small tents that seem unvisited. One of them is closed, and she mentally labels it as storage from the stacks of boxes outside it that appear to be overflow. A second might be an infirmary -- yes, there's a doctor, the stethoscope is  
distinctive. The other two, she has no idea about.

That's something to start with.

 

### VII

She and Yusuf finish sketching a site map before Katanga arrives. Some of the crew come with them; the rest are staying on board tonight, just in case. The ship is slightly closer to the dig than Sulla's home; if trouble finds and follows them, they will dash up the plank and cast off without ceremony.

This has already been agreed, though she doubts the need for it. But it's good to have a back-up plan, a place they know to go without thinking.

"We should come from here, and here." Katanga marks a line with a pencil. "The guards should be in these places, don't you think?"

She frowns. This is too easy. "We should figure out where Belloq is. A lot of archeologists like to walk their digs at night. We don't need to run into him."

"Or the big jackal," Soud mutters.

"If the dog bites you, bite him back," Katanga quips. "Ali, Soud, from here. Omo, Farah, from here. I will go with Maryon."

"Where do you want me?" Sulla asks. He is determined to help, and she knows it's a matter of pride to him because she is staying under his roof.

"Sulla, my friend," she says slowly, "I want you to do something very difficult for us." His eyes sparkle, though Fayah looks nervous. She nods at Fayah, who glances at her husband uncertainly. "I want you to stay here and have a pleasant evening -- but let Mohammad and Yusuf follow usand watch to see that we are well. At the first sign of trouble, one of them will come back to tell you, and the other will go to Katanga's relatives and you can raise the alarm or call the police or rescue us, whatever will work."

Sulla considers, then nods. "Not the police. They are useless these days. But let Mohammad alert his friends who are diggers, and we will have all the help we need. Diggers are anonymous -- I doubt Belloq knows the names of any of his workers -- but they are strong and they can cause a diversion easily. Or you could go to this street," he points, "and this house and tell whoever opens the door that you are my friend. The women there will help."

"That is good. Very good," Katanga says. "Much better than alerting my relatives. Though my grandmother's relations are willing to help -- they are workmen, carpenters and builders, and Belloq has insulted them by bringing in outsiders for these jobs." He grinned. "And they want to meet you, Maryon."

"Oh, lord," she says involuntarily, and feels a blush wash over her as the men laugh. "Can we justgo and be spies and leave that till later?"

"You are not ready," Fayah announces. "Five minutes." Fayah takes her into the back bedroom, where she pulls out a dark Bedouin headscarf and fits it to her head. Next comes the bit of charcoal from the brazier in the corner, to blacken her face, and she shuts her eyes so that Fayahcan gently daub it on her eyelids as well as her cheeks and chin and forehead and nose. "There."

Soon she is just another dark figure walking through the night streets toward the dig.

* * *

They have done this before, she and Katanga, in foreign places where it was unsafe for her to be American and female after dark. Not often, but enough times that they fall easily into the rhythm of walking together with the rolling gait that comes from a life on shipboard, and are instantly invisible to townspeople as anything more than sailors on a night out.

Fortunately, this time they do not have to pass through one of the more conservative areas that frowns on a man going out for a drink or a woman in the night -- and where the mullahs will come out to call down a crowd screaming, "Idolators! Whoremongers!" as they run away.

No, this is Egypt, not the Sudan, not this time. This is Egypt, where she lived with Abner as a child and where she has traveled as an adult. She knows its ways as she knows the back streets of Cairo, as she knows the small and long-healed scars on Katanga's arms from knife fights when he was a wild boy.

* * *

This dig isn't as well-funded as the last one she saw here, with Indy. It's a quarter of the size of the ones the Nazis ran, and the lack of money shows. Few floodlights are lit; those few light the entrances to underground areas, and with mirrors -- as she saw earlier -- are redirected into the tombs themselves, to bring in working light without the heat of lamps. But no one is working this late; there is no need. Most of the labor at this point seems to be directed toward finding buildings and locating their entrances. Only after that would the night work begin. and she plans to be long gone by then.

Fortunately, this evening's sky carries neither full moon nor new moon, but a quarter moon, half screened by high clouds. It grants enough light for her to see where she is going, but not enough to read by. That much light would betray them all.

Much of the site is located on rock as much as on sand, for which she's grateful -- fewer extraneous footprints, particularly fewer of her small ones. The workmen's feet tend to be huge and broad, while hers are narrow and sink deeper into the sand.

In the distance she notices the landing strip is still there, and she wonders briefly if the sand hides any fragments of the enormous plane she blew up, or the tower that burned, but she's not interested enough to go check. They have reached the edge of the tent city.

She touches the gun in her belt for luck. The knife that was hidden in her hair is now wound into her turban. Katanga is an arm's length away.

Ready or not.

She opens the flap of the first unlit tent to the dim outdoor light reflected by the sand. It's storage, as she suspected, though there's a narrow folding wood cot on one side, with a campaign table and small stool as well. No personal goods, though, and too many boxes. Probably just a spare, for a guest, though she wonders who would sleep this far from the main camp. A guard, perhaps?

But she doesn't see a guard anywhere. She asks Katanga in the sign language they'd perfected years earlier and he shakes his head no, but urges her to keep going. She drops the tent flap.

Three semi-open tents: storage, storage, storage. Another: a cook's tent, with a camp stove and fuel, and canned food. Not enough to feed the diggers, she notices. Does Belloq contract with someone in town for food for the workers -- a requirement if they are to work the long hours on most digs -- or does he expect them to bring all their own food? Odd.

Or are they actually working those long hours? Is this a cover for something else?

They pass behind the infirmary, and pause briefly while someone in the tent rolls over and adjusts his snore. When they move on, Katanga touches her hand; Omo has seen something and is waving to them. They move as quickly as possible without running -- which would take too  
much energy and cause too much noise -- to where he stands and follow the direction of his pointing finger to a tent she'd missed before.

One flap of the tent is open, and the kerosene lantern inside glows brightly. Belloq is sitting in a folding chair, reading aloud in a soft voice. She can see his lips move, but only catches a hint of the sound.

Katanga pulls her over to one side, so she can see further. She stumbles, and when she catches his arm to balance herself it is hard-muscled with tension. Her hand follows that tension to his hand, which is clenched around the grip of his pistol as if the weapon were attempting to escape.

When she sees what he sees, she can't comprehend it at first. When she thinks she understands, she feels as if he's trembling but she knows it's herself.

The man listening to Alexandre Belloq sits in a wheelchair, twisted legs half-covered by an old army blanket. She sees the way the bones were broken, how they must have knitted badly, so that even with crutches he would always have trouble. She sees the heavy muscle of his upper body, contrasting to the wasted legs, and she sees the dark glasses he wears and the white shocks in the brown hair that falls over his forehead.

When he moves, to reach for a glass that Belloq puts in his hand, she blinks with tears.

She knows those hands. She used to know them very well.

Everything else may have changed -- the world is shaking beneath her feet -- but Indiana Jones's hands have not changed.

Katanga allows her one more second, then pulls her away. He gathers the rest of the crew and they move back toward Sulla's house carefully.

She knows those hands, just as she knows Katanga's hands, and Ali's, that are guiding her now that she can't see where she's going for some stupid reason. The air on her face feels cool in streaks of sensation from her eyes almost to her chin; she pulls the headgear's veil over her face.

Let any onlookers consider that the men are taking an ill friend home; it is no more than truth. If she has to talk now, to say anything, she will scream, or vomit, or faint.

She concentrates on putting one foot ahead of the other, over and over, as she feels herself moving away from what she can't stop seeing.

 

### VIII

Just for the record, she'd really like to scream now.

She's not doing it, because it would worry Sulla and Katanga and upset the crew and make them think her less able to deal with everything than they expect. Fayah would understand; Fayah's hands, wrapping hers around a hot cup of tea, are anchoring her to this reality that has suddenly twisted into something from a nightmare.

Soud says something quietly to Ali and Omo, but Ali shakes his head and glances sideways at Katanga, who glances at her before answering.

She's so far out of touch with anything except her hands around the cup that the words they're using don't make sense. The tea is hot and sweet, black tea from India, and the cup is a delicate blue with a geometric pattern in white below the rim.

More words over her head. Fayah looks up at them and says something in a tone sharper than she has ever heard from her. Katanga says something that sounds like an apology, and the other men nod.

The tea sloshes in the cup.

Sulla sits next to her where Fayah has been. He puts a hand on her arm and she looks at him. "Maryon, what do you want to do? What do you want us to do?"

The words sink in, but she has no answer. Her own words creak out. "I have to tell Henry."

"Henry. Dr, Jones. Oh, yes, Oh ... no."

Sulla's face comes into focus again and she sees that he's crying. Maybe that means she's crying too. Her eyes hurt.

"You know Dr. Jones?"

Sulla nods. "We met years ago, on another expedition. He is a fine gentleman and a scholar." He adds, slowly, "What will you tell him?"

Katanga sits next to her. He refills her cup from a pot on the stove, just as he would do aboard ship for any of the crew, just as they would do for him. It brings her back to the present, to this house and this room and these people who care about her and who all look worried.

Her words come slowly. "I don't know. I don't know what size of tile to send him." She takes another sip of tea, not caring if it scorches her. "Henry gave me a little box with pieces of broken pottery in it -- not antique but fake. He said that if I had some news to send a small piece, but if I wanted him to come to send a large one."

"I see." Sulla nods slowly.

"Clearly, we need to know more before telling him anything." Katanga's voice sounds reluctant. He shifts in his chair. "Will you still go to the dig tomorrow to take photos?"

She considers. "In the afternoon."

"I will so notify them," Yusuf says. She had forgotten him, but he is there behind his mother, smiling bravely for her. She manages a smile back, though she's not sure how successful it is.

"Rest, then. Sleep late." Katanga nods to the men. "We will see what else we may learn before you go."

Suddenly she is exhausted; the energy she would have used to scream seems to have leaked out like water from a broken pot. She nods in spite of herself and feels Katanga's arms around her, carrying her to her room.

* * *

She does not remember falling asleep, but she wakes once, startled by the sound of a rooster, and finds her head on Katanga's shoulder as if they were on the ship.

When she wakes the second time, she is alone in the bed. Katanga's peaked captain's cap is on a chair nearby, and the window is open to a gentle breeze and a blue sky. She shivers and, unaccountably, is glad for the lack of a cheval glass. But she's sure she looks hideous, and the sun is too far in the sky, and she needs to get herself together and go out to the dig with a camera and an alibi.

Or even just the camera. Something to hide behind. No one looks at a photographer, just at the equipment.

She will have to send someone to get her beat-up Leica from the ship, and the spare film from the drawer in her cabin.

* * *

For a while, as she washes and dresses, she can concentrate on the idea of photography. The technical challenges of shooting pictures in an underground room lit by mirrors distract her from the reason she is there in the first place. She would like to do good work, something Henry Jones might find interesting. She would like to be able to give him something good.

One more day, she promises him silently, and then I will write the letter and send the chip of pottery in its box.

* * *

As it turns out, her photographic skills are not to be tested today. When she comes into the kitchen, Fayah hands her a letter that has come for her. Dr. Alexandre Belloq requests her presence for dinner at Shepheard's, at eight p.m.

Of course she will go. She sends back word immediately that she will meet him there.

Fayah and the three daughters and two daughters-in-law ransack their closets for her, until she feels as if she is buried in fine silks and sheer linens and the jewelry of Hatshepsut. When they are done, she wears a dress of emerald and sapphire silk, nothing like the dull green of work clothes. Fayah has put up her hair again with the decorative little dagger, murmuring how good it is that she has let her hair grow. and not cut it short like those American film stars.

Katanga, who has come by to see how she is and to bring her the news, whistles softly.

"I see I shall have to give you more opportunities to wear beautiful clothes, Maryon."

"You like it?" She turns for him.

"If I did not trust you, I should be very jealous."

"Should I give you something to worry about?"

He laughs. "No, don't put yourself to that much trouble. Do you want the news or not?" When she turns back to him anxiously, he says, "The word among the diggers is that Belloq has a friend who knows all about antiquities; they believe it is an older brother. Belloq takes him everything he finds, to be authenticated."

"An older brother..."

Sulla enters, and after exclaiming over her dress (at Fayah's insistence) is told what Katanga said. "No. It's not possible."

"Why not?" Katanga said. "The man was surely old enough."

"I doubt it. Besides, I have checked with my own sources, and Alexandre Belloq is the oldest son. There is a daughter, married, and a younger brother, and neither is in Egypt."

"Then maybe I'll have more information by the time I've finished dinner." At least it will give her something else to think about, which is something that she needs, if only for sanity.

"I would have liked to see you in white, Maryon." Katanga whispers.

But she shakes her head. "Not this time. It never stays on long enough."

At least not when there was a Belloq around.

She's not sure whether she wants the son to resemble the father that way or not. A good flirtation would be fun, but she could do without being dropped into any ancient tombs and buried alive this time, with or without resident snakes.

"Go, you. I must finish her hair," Fayah scolds gently, and Katanga rises and goes, smiling.

She has no doubt he will find a way to be there, or to have one of their crew present, just in case, just as he will also send one or two more to wander through the camp and get a better look at theman in the tent. That's what they do.

Not for the first time, she remembers why she wanted to ship out with pirates in the first place: unlike the Nazis and most of her old lovers, they never leave anyone behind.

 

### IX

She arrives at Shepheard's Hotel ahead of Belloq, thanks to her capable and apparently invulnerable taxi driver. He is another friend of Sulla's, who will take her back after dinner as well if she wishes, regardless of what the bell captain says. Although the streets have become somewhat cleaner in the last few years they still contain enough camel dung to make her pleased that the taxi was available. When the driver pulls up at the portico, she smiles at him and he hands her a card to give the majordomo, so that she will not be directed to a different taxi.

She waits in the porch a moment, watching the crowd of foreigners move in and out, and the horde of local people who, for the most part, stay in the street beyond. No sign of anyone she knows, but that's to be expected. She goes on into the hotel, to the restaurant, and asks to be seated while she waits for her dining companion. The table she is given has a good view of the street, though not as good a view of the room. She is slightly hidden by a curtain, which pleases her as it gives her a slight advantage of mystery that she intends to exploit to the fullest.

Alexandre Belloq should never be allowed to think that all the charm in their acquaintance is on his side.

As soon as she thinks of him, she sees again the outline of him reading aloud to -- she can't think it, yet, can't think through the implications of what she saw. Instead, she makes herself recall the precise shade of yellow light coming from the lamp -- just like that satiny trim on the cloth hanging in the shop outside -- and the way he sat in the camp chair as he read, his body nearly stiff with tiredness but his voice still warm. He is a sphynx's riddle to her, a puzzle box without a keyhole or key.

As if the thought made him appear, he is there, bowing to her, sitting across from her at the small table, asking after her health and apologizing for making her wait. He seems sincere, and she takes the appearance for reality; time enough later on to examine his behavior and determine whether he's as truthful as he seems. He orders wine for them, and she nods and accepts her glass without comment. The wine glows golden, touched with a little pink, and tastes nothing like the heavy, heady wine she drank with his father.

"From your family vines?" It's worth asking.

"What?" He is startled. "No, actually not. We lost the farm in Algeria during the war. Did you actually have some of the Belloq wine? It's been hard to find since the war. What did you think of it?"

She studies the wine in its glass. "It was a little smoky, a bit more substantial than this, but very good. I had it when I visited Egypt before."

He nods; he must have heard this before. Of course she must have visited Egypt before; she is an archeologist, as far as he knows, and this is the First Civilization of Archeology to many Egyptologists, the source of all things -- ignoring all other ancient cultures and civilizations. She remembers the ruins in Nepal, and the stones she found in a remote cave in India that had Persian writing pre-dating Alexander.

The waiter arrives and bows, and they order. She chooses chicken; it's not early enough in spring to order lamb and be sure she won't be given mutton. After so much time spent on the ship, she doesn't want fish; when they want a change of diet Omo drags a net and they eat whatever he catches. Sometimes it's excellent, sometimes less so.

She is recalled from her thoughts by his voice, and smiles an apology for being abstracted.

"I was wondering if you would tell me a bit about your own work. I confess, I'm not as well acquainted with the work of many of my colleagues as I should be."

A reasonable question, especially for a man who's been busy at a remote dig. She recalls as much as she can of the articles in the journals Henry suggested, and the ones she remembered from the university in America. That will be useful filler -- but he asked about herself first.

"Actually, I concentrate more on languages, translation, and some authentication." True, as far as it went; a decade ago she worked as a translator for the Associated Press in order to get to Europe at the end of the war. "It hasn't been as easy to get work as you might think."

"The war has caused many problems. So much has been destroyed, or looted." His eyes are sad. "What I wouldn't give to have been here before, when artifacts were found in context, so that I could have documented and studied them."

She nods. Chapter and verse, the same as Henry has always said, and Abner as well. And Indy, to a lesser degree.

"Do you have an interest in any particular region? Or culture?"

"I'm a bit of a generalist," she admits. "Lately the work has been mostly African regional, and some Hindu, but I've had a certain amount of experience in Far Eastern cultures, specifically Nepal."

True enough. The bar she ran in the mountains of Nepal had been there several hundred years, and had contained any number of antiquities -- not counting several of the patrons -- before it burned in the early spring of '39.

"How do you ... I mean, are you attached to a university or ..."

She takes pity on him. "Most of the time I work with people who want to ship and insure precious cargo, not always antiquities. It's not exactly what I was trained for, but one takes what work is possible. During the war I was a translator for a news service, so I could travel." She remembers the cold winter in France, and then in Germany, the snow falling on the new graves. "I saw ... terrible things. I'm sure you did too."

He leans forward and for a moment she is sure he will take her hand, but he restricts himself to refilling her glass. She isn't trying to play for his sympathy, not in that way; she's letting too much of her real self be seen, so she glances away and back, and lets him take that as he will.

"I'm sorry. I did not mean to remind you of difficult things." A touch of color rises in his cheeks. "My own experiences during the war were, shall we say, awkward." His eyes rise to meet hers, and she sees anger in them. "I was away at school for much of the war, and then at the end of it there was no money for university, so I worked my way through however I could." He glances down, then back up as if seeking understanding. "You met my father, you said."

She nods slowly.

"Then you know that he was a collaborateur, who looted sites for the Nazis? Because of him, my mother died -- the hospital would not let the collaborateur's wife enter. Because of him the farm was confiscated, and the house, and the family lost everything." The undertones in his voice throb with emotions so strongly she's surprised the crystal wineglasses aren't vibrating.

"I'm sorry." Impulsively, she touches his hand. She hasn't intended to feel sorry for him, but it's not a feeling she can resist when faced with this much pain. "I didn't get along well with your father, if that's the question. I opposed his looting as strongly as I could."

That's as diplomatic as she can be about Belloq, professionally speaking.

He nods, touches her hand in turn and retreats slightly.

"You weren't close to him, I gather."

"No. I was always asking questions, so I was shipped off to school. Lisa, my sister, married young to get away; she was safe in Brussels when the farm was taken. Mama was dead by then; there was only myself and my brother Raul, who was with her."

Ah. She pauses, considering ways to proceed.

"Raul hated the farm anyway; he is probably happier now working as a chef in Switzerland than he ever was before."

Raul, in Switzerland, a neutral country. Lisa, in Brussels. Neither of them in that tent.

The food is delivered, and they start to eat. The chicken is a little tough but tasty in its wine-and-mushroom sauce, and the vegetables aren't overcooked. She tastes a bite of Alexandre's filet de boeuf, at his request, and he tastes her chicken and makes a joke about testing the spices and flavorings for his next letter to Raul, and the atmosphere feels a bit lighter.

"How is the work proceeding on your dig? I'd love to hear about it." She's starting to think she would like to hear more from him, which she wouldn't have said before dinner. Maybe his obvious hatred for the cost of his father's mistakes has made her feel more at home with him; she still harbors a healthy hatred for Rene Belloq herself. She checks for the chip of ice within herself, and finds it. Is he harboring a similar chip, ice of a different vintage and color but from the same source and equally cold?

But he is wary again, inexplicably, for someone who has nothing to hide. "So far, so much of it is preliminary, the endless shoveling and sifting, and sorting the fairly recent from the truly antique. I shouldn't be surprised by now, but it still amazes me at times that I will dig through to what looks like an area unopened for several thousand years and find scraps of paper or the remains of  
meals from the Napoleonic Era, let alone the Afrika Korps. It almost feels like a triumph when the trash is Roman or Ptolemaic."

She nods in sympathy. "And it seems like every forger in the world copied things during the war, so that I spend too much time telling people that what they have is worth less than the cost of shipping it." She has done that, at times, and though the owners generally are disappointed because of her honesty they love their fakes and ship them anyway.

A slight movement on the other side of the street catches her eye. Ali, sitting in the cafe, drinking coffee and talking with the taxi drivers. And Yusef, with him. Yusef inclines his head in her direction while listening to someone talk. Good.

"You don't seem to have a large crew right now. Are you planning on hiring more later on?" she asks.

"I'm not sure that more men would be an improvement. I'd rather work with a smaller group that is well trained and experienced. Unfortunately, many of the men who worked on archeological sites before the war have gone elsewhere, or are no longer available."

"If you're looking for more workers, I might be able to suggest a few who are experienced," she offers. "I could ask my friends; they are not as involved as before the war, but they know many people."

"I would be grateful if you could do that, as long as they understand that I have not got a great deal of funding." He grimaces. "I won't destroy your appetite by describing the political maneuvers that allowed me to fund this dig in the first place."

"I have to ask." She puts her fork on the plate, holds the wineglass just to have something in her hand. "Why did you choose this site? It's not that close to Gizeh, or the tombs in the Valley of the Kings or the Valley of the Queens. It's got such a bad reputation as a 'haunted' site that I've heard people refuse work here because of it."

"Is that why," he breathes. "Thank you. I had heard muttering, but no real reasons. As for why I chose it -- the professional reason is that it was partially excavated by the Nazis, but was abandoned suddenly for no good reason. I would dearly love to find whatever they did not destroy and study it in what remains of its historical context. Personally," he pauses, "let us say I'm expiating an old debt. This is the last site that my father is known to have worked on, and it was closed shortly after he ... disappeared. I don't know that I would find his body here, but it would be a comfort."

"A comfort?"

"Yes. I would know then that he is dead. My brother and sister and I would never have to worry about him showing up from South America or the other places that Nazis went, and ruining our lives over again."

She doesn't know what to say. If she's wrong about what she saw in the tent -- and that's possible, she was at a distance, she didn't hear the man's voice -- then she is the only living person who knows for certain that Rene Belloq died in 1939. She's the only one alive who heard him scream as the power of the Ark destroyed him; when she opened her eyes there had been nothing left on the ground to show that he'd ever been there at all, not a shred of cloth or a piece of hair. The rock had been bare of all but the ruined cameras and lights, the closed Ark, and herself and Indy.

"I'm sorry," is all she can think to say. "Isn't there anything in the German records?"

"You'd think there would be, they kept records on everything, but not so." Alexandre sits back in his chair. "There's a journal I've seen from the dig." He closes his eyes and recites, "April 23. Found it. Now to test it before going to Berlin." His eyes open. "That's all."

She could supplement that journal entry, if she wished. Found it. Lost it to Jones. Got it back. Caught Jones. Tested it. It killed me.

She, of course, being incidental to his plans, would not have been mentioned.

"Would you care to see dessert, madame? Sir?" the waiter asks.

"Yes," She wants to spend more time talking to this man.

When she glances out at the street, Katanga is sitting in Ali's place and Sulla is in his son's seat. Change of shift, she is sure. Whatever time she wants to stay or go, she has no need to hurry.

Alexandre's hand touches hers -- mercifully, the hand on the wine glass, away from the window. "I'm sorry. I didn't ask you here to bore you with my family."

"I'm not bored." She lets him divide the last of the bottle between his glass and hers. It's a long time since she could down fourteen shots (only half of them diluted, if that) and drink a yak herder under the table. She could do with an after-dinner brandy. "It's such a large site; I'll certainly ask if my friends know anyone who might want to work on it with you, if you like."

"Please. And, if you would be so kind, do find out what the stories are about 'hauntings'. The more I know, the better I will be able to deal with them. I assure you, I am not causing anything supernatural there."

"I believe you." And she does. But if not him, who else? Who might have something to gain from stopping work at Tanis? "My assistant heard someone speak of another archeologist on site, who is working with you. I'd like to meet him, if that's possible."

He blinks. "How did you -- of course."

"Did I say something wrong? I'm sorry."

"No, no." He dallies over his dessert, a fruit pastry, and watches her take a spoonful of the creme caramel. "That is ... another long story. I do have someone working with me, a friend for many years who was injured in the war. For convenience on the dig, the workers know of him as my brother. You know now that he is not."

"Who is he?" Her heart is beating so hard in her throat she's sure he can see it.

"I wish I knew. He doesn't know himself."

 

### X

The story comes out in bits and pieces over dessert, coffee and brandy. By the time he finishes, she thinks, she'll wish she was back in Nepal drinking with the yak herders.

She promises herself three solid days of being drunk for this, but not yet. It will have to be later, when she can let herself feel the emotions that match what she's hearing, when she can allow herself the luxury of unveiled reaction.

* * *

"... His legs were crushed, and he was bleeding from three places on his head. I don't know what happened. According to rumor, he'd been found by a Bedouin family taking shelter from a sandstorm --"

"Could that have happened?" she asked.

"It's no more or less likely than anything else. The tribes in that area were fairly peaceful. They wouldn't have attacked him for no reason, and if they had, they would have killed him, not brought him to hospital."

"And then ..."

"And then the hospital was evacuated, and he was still in a coma, so I stayed there to take care of him. We were both expendable, as far as the authorities were concerned. He started to come around while we were alone together, and that's when I learned that he had lost most of his eyesight."

A vision of blue eyes in sun-browned skin rises in her mind. Blue eyes in a face smiling at her from under a worn fedora, or framed by a borrowed turban and scarf. Blue eyes she'd seen in the face on her pillow, not for long enough.

Alexandre is still talking, as if he needs to talk more than he needed food and almost as much as he needs to breathe. "... and he had no idea who he was or where he was or why he was there."

"So you couldn't show him his face in a mirror."

He flashes her a smile. Worried gray eyes, in a face that doesn't seem as young now. "I didn't have a mirror. The evacuation was fairly thorough." He gulped the last of his coffee and signaled for more. "Our doctors had done their best to reassemble his legs, but ... The long bones in one leg were shattered; the other knee was fractured, splintered. I don't know how he survived the beating until he made it to the hospital without contracting an infection."

"I've heard it said that the sand in some areas is cleaner than others, antibacterial," she murmurs. "I've never seen it, though. But you stayed with him."

"Yes. We became friends. We talked; it was a way to help him try to remember. He knew history, and literature, but couldn't recall where he'd studied them. He remembered places, but couldn't put names to them. At some time he had been in Egypt; he remembered the flavor of roasted lamb from that little place up on the corner, about three streets away --"

"I know the place."

"-- and as time went on I hoped his memory would return more fully. It has, in part. He knows a lot about archeology, and science in general. I've wondered if he was a scientist working with the Allied Army, who was lost in the desert and attacked by robbers. But he has never remembered who he is, or what his life was before."

"What do you call him?"

"Hank. He remembered the name, Henry, and he has an American accent, so he said he must have been called Hank. That's what I've always called him."

"So, you still take care of him."

"You might say we take care of each other. He speaks perfect German and French; I persuaded the authorities to grant him a partial pension because of his injuries, and for a wonder they believed me and did grant it. When I wanted to go back to university and finish my degree, he encouraged me. We shared a house, he helped me with my studies. But he always wanted to come back here for some reason, so when I was given the opportunity to mount a dig here I took it."

"What does he do? How much can he see?" She has to ask. She needs to have something she can tell Sulla and Katanga and Henry Jones.

"He's an excellent translator. He learned braille when he lost his eyesight, so he reads the fragments of hieroglyphic and hieratic on carvings and statuary and interprets them for me. His eyesight is better at some times than others; strong light strains his eyes, but he can see a great deal in low light." Alexandre's smile was gentle. "And he encourages me. He's my brother, better than a brother. I never got along that well with Raul."

"It's a remarkable story," she manages to say.

"I'm sorry. I have been talking far too long, and you're tired and you really don't want --"

"Nonsense." She flicked her finger at the brandy snifter and raised an eyebrow at the waiter, and he refilled it. "This round's on me. Really."

* * *

She has no idea how she will explain this to anyone. She isn't sure she can explain it to herself.

* * *

"You know, I've been living fairly quietly the last few years, but I used to know a number of people in the world of archeology." She hesitates, unsure of how to ask.

"You'd like to meet him. I think you'd enjoy it. He's a remarkable man."

"He must be, to inspire such devotion."

He snorts, the first gesture she's seen that reflects his father. "He's not that inspirational. He can swear in six languages, and does it often during the wet season when his legs hurt him."

"He wouldn't mind meeting me?"

"Not at all. I'd ask him, and of course some days are better than others, but maybe you will recognize him."

She closes her eyes briefly -- it's been a long day or two, and this dinner isn't the shortest segment of it -- and when she opens them she says quietly, "What if I do know him? He's made a life with you, and from what you say he's happy. Will he want to know?"

"Believe me, Mary, he will want to know. Hank is curious about everything and everyone. He'd be trading jokes and insults with all the diggers if he could, and we'd never get anything done. Oh, my, how late it's become." He rises, and so does she, though she lets the last of the brandy slide down her throat first. "I will let you know when he is available. And you are certainly welcome to come back tomorrow to the dig and take your photographs. You didn't have much time the other day; I'd like to show you some of the things I've found."

"I'd like that very much," she tells him. As they go outside she flags her taxi without a problem, and the driver pulls the car up to the curb, gets out and opens the door for her. "Thank you for dinner and for the evening, Alexandre."

"I hope I didn't bore you too much," he says. He is nearly a boy again, uncertain, and she realizes how circumscribed his world has probably been this last twelve years. "I should know better than to talk so much about myself."

"No, please don't apologize. I wasn't bored at all, believe me." She lets him kiss her hand -- another remnant of his father, though Alexandre does it with as much sincere admiration as charm -- and she gets into the taxi and leaves. He stands and waves after her for a moment.

The taxi goes around two corners and stops, and Katanga gets in next to her. "You enjoyed the evening?"

She surprises him and herself by bursting into tears she can't explain for most of the way back. Words are escaping her again, but this time she knows what they are, she's just not fast enough to capture them. By the time the cab is back at Sulla's house her eyes are dry, and she walks into the house with her head high.

Sulla is sitting at the table, playing a board game with his children. He rises when he sees her face, and his own face lights up.

"Yes?"

She nods. "Yes. He's alive, but he has amnesia. He doesn't know who he is."

Sulla sinks back into the chair. "Oh no, Maryon. my friend. Oh, my poor Indiana."

 

### XI

In the morning, after a few hours of sleep, she goes to the ship herself to retrieve her camera and film, more clothes, and -- just because it feels right to her -- the hat and whip.

She wants them with her, in the room where she sleeps, even if nobody else ever sees them.

Even him.

Katanga has never minded them, or if he did he said nothing. For her part, she has never made those things part of their relationship. When she puts on a hat in Katanga's bed, it's Katanga's black-brimmed Greek fisherman's hat, or perhaps the one with the broader brim and higher frame that he got -- who knows how -- from someone in the American Navy.

And when she buys hats, if they're a fedora style she decorates them. A ribbon band, a pin, a bright feather. Nothing so representational that it would upset any of the more observant Muslem crew, but just some twist of finery to show that it's hers.

This is the first time the whip has been handled since she brought it aboard, except for once a year when she takes it from its place and smooths neat's-foot oil over it to keep the leather supple and checks it for any fraying or damage. She doesn't question why she does it, either. It's just something she does.

She hasn't slept enough to be able to deal with trouble, but the streets are quiet enough. The air is cooler than she expected; she wears her jacket back from the ship, and because she has no better way to carry it she puts the hat on her head, ignoring the way it comes down over her eyes.

And ties the whip to her belt.

It's more respectful to these things than putting them in a box or crate. If it's also superstitious to think that, she's not going to examine that either.

She can be almost frighteningly singleminded when she wants to be.

And right now she needs that certainty as she moves through the market, where the booths are starting to open, ignoring the looks of the men around her. She buys fresh fruit for Fayah, and nibbles on a skewer of freshly roasted lamb.

Behind her, murmurs arise from behind the stalls, from the cafes.

_Ferengi._ Foreigner. Violator of the laws of Islam, wearing the clothes of a man.

She hears them, takes note and walks on. Responding would cause more trouble, and she is nearly back to Sulla's now.

Unchaste houri. Whore. Insult to Allah.

She turns at the last comment, sliding her eyes across the accusing faces that have emerged into the street.

"I haven't known any of you." She gives the words the turn, in Arabic, that underlines their meaning. "What says Allah of men who bear false witness, and who pass judgment without evidence? What does Allah say of them?"

They are silent, briefly, but they are moving closer.

She shifts the camera sideways on her neck and puts her arm through the strap so it won't bounce. She pushes the shoulder bag carrying the fruit toward her back with her left hand, as she unties the blacksnake whip with her right and flicks it once. The tip pops in the sand six inches ahead of the nearest man, and he stops.

"That's right. I do know how to use this, just as he did." She's out of practice, but he did teach her long ago, back on that dig when she was fifteen. By the time they were done she could knock a fly off a camel's saddle without annoying the camel too much. He could knock the fly off the camel itself, but he had longer arms and that seemed to make a difference. "Do you want to take  
me on? Or you?"

They're not backing up but they're holding still. She hears footsteps behind her and tenses, but when she sees the men facing her veering away she swings around, whip in hand.

"Oh my goodness." Sulla blinks. "I thought I was seeing a ghost, and you know I don't believe in them." But he is followed by Yusuf and Mohammed, and what appears to be a flying wing of Mohammed's friends, some of whom she recognizes from the dig. "We thought you might have had some trouble getting back from the ship." He uses a term she doesn't recognize.

"Who?" she asks.

"A very conservative branch of Islam. They are political, and active, and the police are repressing them at Nasser's orders. But some of them have booths in that part of the market."

"Things have changed," she says, coiling the whip and tying it in place. She remembers the red loose trousers and the embroidered blouse she wore before -- women's clothing but not entirely from this culture, and not always recognized as such.

"They have indeed. Come to breakfast, Maryon. Fayah is waiting."

"I hope she likes grapefruit." She hands over the bag: grapefruit, grapes, dates, figs.

"She will welcome them, " Sulla assures her. "I did not know you had these things." He indicates the hat and whip with a nod.

"I wanted them with me at your house."

Sulla nods. "What does Katanga say to that?"

"It is not Katanga's business what I wear or carry." But that feels too routine an answer. "He knows who I am. This is not a problem, Sulla."

Sulla shrugs. "As you say. My, that is a fine camera. May I see it later?"

She nods as they reach the house. "I'll change into other clothes before I go to the dig. No sense in scaring everyone." And she removes the hat before entering.

In her hand it's just another piece of faded brown felt with a hole above the band. She smiles at Fayah, who is exclaiming over the fruit and handing it to a daughter to wash and arrange, and goes upstairs where she puts the whip on the table, coiled under the hat, before going down to eat.

* * *

It's only family at the table this morning. Yusuf sits next to her and hands her the basket of bread. "I hear that Anubis visited the dig last night again."

"Anubis? Oh, the jackal." She is spreading honey on her slice. "Why would someone want to scare off the diggers? It doesn't make sense to me. There aren't a lot of jobs out there; why cause problems?"

"Yes, I know." Sulla accepts a cup of coffee and stirs it meditatively. "You have been out of the country for a long time, Maryon. Things have changed."

"So you said. But wouldn't political radicals have better things to do than impersonate one of the old gods?" She followed the thought. "Wouldn't they be more likely to cause 'accidents' on the site that would hurt Belloq --" She couldn't say it. "Anyway, not just try to scare the diggers?"

"It would make sense, but such things seldom do." Yusuf's eyes flick toward Muhammad. "Will you ask among the diggers?"Muhammad nods. "They are careful men, and they enjoy the work. And Belloq pays well enough, for all that he seems short of funds and hires only a few men."

She remembers something from dinner. "He might like to hire more, but he's had a hard time keeping workers."

"I will ask," Muhammad promises.

"As will I," Sulla says. "I do not like this business of threatening and frightening people. It is as if someone thought the Nazis were here again."

Sulla's words trip something in her mind, but the thought escapes before she can catch it. "Are you available today, Yusuf? I'll actually need an assistant while I'm taking pictures."

Yusuf nods. "If not myself, one of us."

She nods, and the thought returns. "Sulla, back when we were here before the war, was anyone trying to scare the Germans like that? By faking the gods?"

Sulla frowns. "I do not think so, but it bears consideration. But you must remember, everyone hated them and they knew it. Anyone who resisted would be beaten, or killed outright, despite the fact that the British officially ran the country at the time. It was a very complicated situation."

"Yes, it was." She sips her coffee and thinks about the past.

 

### XII

Yusuf goes with her to the site in the afternoon, carrying a tripod for her camera. She carries the camera itself, and film, and dresses much as she did when she was here before, in loose trousers and a blouse with long sleeves. The outfit is modest enough that it should avoid comment, but allows her sufficient freedom of movement. Her hair is coiled at the back of her neck, still wrapped around the knife, whose handle supports the back brim of her hat.

She hasn't been this concerned about how she dressed since she interviewed for the job at the bookstore, years ago.

The gun is in the camera bag. It makes more sense than putting it anywhere else, and she doesn't want to carry it in an obvious way.

The taxi lets them off as near as possible to the dig, and they traipse along a well-beaten path in the sand, passing diggers who wave at them and others who frown as they haul something out of a hole on taut ropes.

Alexandre is sitting in the shelter of the tent, sorting small things in a tray when she arrives in mid-afternoon. "Come in, come in. How are you? Where would you like to begin?"

"Are you finding anything interesting?" She peers at the tray, with its fine-woven screen.

"Not yet. Still a lot of Roman rubbish, actually. I could make you a good deal on a used denarius." He smiles, and she realizes he's nervous again. Perhaps it's because Yusuf is there.

"No, thanks." She casts an eye toward the sky. "Think we could reflect enough light in with your mirrors to let me take photos in the rooms you've got open, without putting in more hot lights?"

"I'm sure we could. Actually, one of the rooms still has some of its original paintings. Very late period, Ptolomaic at best, but pretty. Would you like to see them?"

* * *

She watches Alexandre casually all the time she is taking pictures, and he's still nervous. He shows her the room with the paintings, which is as pretty as he said, and the small row of genuinely good artifacts he's found, including a mummified cat and alligator, both small, and a fragment of gold leaf that probably came off a wooden case. The gold is so light that a breath makes it move, but it appears to have a pattern worked into it, something with leaves and flowers. It must have been stunning when it was new and complete.

When she has taken pictures of everything possible, she hands the outfit over to Yusuf, who bows mildly and takes it all away somewhere. Alexandre, who appears to have been waiting for Yusuf to leave, says quietly, "Yes."

"Yes?" It takes her a second, then her heart is beating in her throat.

"Yes. Hank would like to meet you."

Oh, God. "The feeling is mutual." As they head toward a more distant tent, she asks, "Is there anything I should avoid talking about?"

"He's not up on current affairs, if that's what you're asking. Other than that, no." Alexandre opens the flap of the tent for her.

Inside it's shadowed but not black; light filters through the canvas but pours through screened windows whose weather flaps have been rolled up. The tent is floored in wooden planks, probably to make it easier for the wheelchair. The man in the chair has his back to her, and is working at a table. He runs his fingertips over a broken stone, pauses to push a stylus through a frame onto paper, and moves his fingers over the stone again. He stops when they enter and turns his face toward them.

She gulps when she sees the scar that runs from his forehead up through his hair. It has to be a bullet crease; nothing else looks like that. The other scars are less startling at first, but she notices them all. It's as if the back of her mind is busy storing his image so she might be able to review it later at her leisure. That doesn't matter; she won't be seeing anything but him when she closes her eyes for a long time.

"Hank, I've brought a visitor." Alexandre sounds pleased, though his expression is more tentative than his words.

"Good, good," he says.

Yes. It's Indy's voice, rougher and lower with time, but she knows it's his. It still has that underlying tease of amiable sarcasm that rarely went away.

How can she be so certain when she hasn't heard it in a dozen years?

She can be. She knows.

"My name's Hank. What's yours?" he says.

"I'm --"

His head comes up. It's as if he's sniffing the air. "Excuse me, but are you wearing perfume? Something smells so familiar."

"Yes, it's a cologne I've worn for years." In fact, it's one that he found and gave her for a birthday present when she was young. She goes to considerable trouble to find more of it whenever she runs out; it's not as easily found as it once was.

"It smells good. Really good. I think I like you already." He turns the chair. She can see his face now; the dark glasses show nothing of his eyes, but the planes of his face, while thinner than she recalls, are familiar. He is clean-shaven; she suspects that's Alexandre's work.

"I'm Marion." She puts her hand down into his, which he has been holding out to her, and feels the unchanged strength of his grip.

"Marion. That's a nice name." He's pleasant, apparently glad to have someone new to talk to. "You're American, aren't you? But you've traveled a lot; your voice has picked up other accents."

"That's very perceptive." Her senses are escaping her control; they're wrapped around the man holding her hand as if he were the sun and she a comet hoping for a promotion to planetary status. "I've lived in a lot of places. Egypt, Nepal, France, England, America."

You came and found me in Nepal. You saved my life in Egypt and you came to rescue me in Greece. You made love to me in that big fluffy bed in my apartment in Cambridge, and in Katanga's cabin on the ship.

"Alex probably told you about me, didn't he? How I can't remember much before the last ten years or so?" Is that a hint of change in his voice? "He thought you might be able to help me."

She swallows hard. Tears are streaming down her cheeks and she doesn't care if Alexandre sees them or not. She doesn't care. "Yes. Yes, I know who you are." Deep breath, trying not to lose control before the earth opens up and swallows her for this, for all good things must have a price. "Your name is Dr. Henry Jones, Jr., but everyone except your father calls you Indiana Jones."

"Indiana Jones. Am I from Indiana?" He's turning this over, looking for the key to fitting this back into the universe he's built in the last few years.

"I don't know. I think you grew up in Arizona." She dashes away a tear with the wrist of the hand that's not holding his; she's not letting go and neither is he. She's kneeling next to him on the hard sandy floor, feeling the grains of sand dig in through her trousers. When a chair materializes behind her she nods thanks but never looks aside. "You're an archeologist, a very good one."

"That hasn't changed." It's Alexandre's voice, from behind her.

Hank -- no, Indy -- no, Hank -- chuckles. "Are my parents alive?"

"Your father's in France. I can ask him to come here whenever you want. I know he's missed you." She remembers old conversations. "I think your mother died when you were a child. I know I never got to meet her."

He nods slowly. "You seem so familiar. Familiar smells, familiar touch." His fingers move over and through hers, as if trying to memorize them. "We knew each other well? We were friends?"

"Oh, yes." She can't hold it back out of her voice any longer. "We were very good friends. You came to get me in Nepal, to help you work at this site in 1939, to keep the Nazis from getting their hands on the Ark of the Covenant."

His face is still, frozen, and she thinks something's wrong until he says, "Gold. And wings. And big crocodile figures -- huge, fifty feet high -- crashing through a stone wall in the dark ..."

"Yes."

"... And a submarine ..."

"Yes."

"And there was a small man, Egyptian, working with me." He starts to sound out a word but shakes his head. "Sulky?"

"Sulla. Sulla." She feels rather than sees Alexandre move in next to her, to put a hand on Indy's shoulder. "Sulla is still alive. I'm staying with him and Fayah and the children."

He frowns. "Something about a monkey and a man with a cutlass..."

"I don't know about the cutlass, but there was a monkey that followed us."

"Alex. Alex." Indy reaches with his other hand toward Alexandre, who clasps it in his. "I have a name, Alex. I guessed right. I have a name, and I'm an archeologist, and I have a father and friends."

"Yes, you do."

Indy turns back to her. "Where are you in this? What do you look like? You know, I can't see very well now."

The memory of those sky-blue eyes wrenches at her guts. "I'm not very tall. I have black hair, but it's longer than it was." What the hell. She takes off the hat one-handed and pulls out the dagger and a hairpin, so that her hair falls over her shoulders, and drop them in the camera case. She moves Indy's hand up to touch her hair, and his fingers brush it gently. "I have gray eyes, or maybe green. We met when your father was digging in Egypt with mine, when we were children, and later when you were my father's assistant." She hopes Alexandre will forgive her earlier caution. "My father was Abner Ravenwood."

Alexandre's head swivels, and she can feel the wheels turning in his mind.

"I'm Marion Ravenwood O'Malley."

Alexandre is saying nothing, comprehensively, in the twist of his lips and the blaze of his pale eyes.

"You're married?" Indy's fingers search her hand for a ring. She doesn't wear one.

"After you left, after you were presumed dead, I moved west and I was married. Peter died in the war."

"I'm sorry." It's almost automatic, but she can tell he's thinking of something else. "After I left."

"Yes."

"We were..."

"Yes."

His silence is long this time, and she finally turns toward Alexandre, who murmurs. "It's a shock to all of us, I think." His hand is stroking Indy's shoulder and neck, and Indy is leaning toward him in the chair. Abruptly she feels as if she is looking in through a window at a private moment not meant for her.

"Yes, it is."

"Marion Ravenwood. Marion." He's turning the words over in his mouth, trying them out, trying them on. "Marion." Something registers, and his face turns back to her, his smile glaringly bright. "Marion. This is you? I mean, this is us? Marion, oh," and she knows by his smile, and the tears that slide down his cheek that he knows something, the pieces are clicking into place slowly and surely. He lets go of Alexandre and pulls her in for a hug, and she goes, fitting herself around the arm of the chair.

"Yes, Indy, it's me."

"I dreamed about you. I was looking for you," His voice is ragged. "Marion, can you tell me what happened to me?"

She shakes her head so he can feel it against him. "I don't know what happened, Indy. Nobody does. All I know is that Marcus called you into his office one day in 1942 --"

"Office?"

"You were teaching archeology at a small New England college affiliated with Harvard University. Marcus was the museum curator, and your friend."

"Okay." A quick head shake. "Go on."

"I'm not sure what he told you, but he said there was something over here that you had to get to before the Nazis did, something very important and small, and you told me you'd be back in six weeks or less. When you didn't show up, I came over to look for you." She leaves it at that. Maybe later she might tell him what it was like to sneak into French West Africa from Morocco under the eyes of the Vichy and the Germans, and to travel from oasis to oasis seeking word. "I found where you'd been staying, but there was a lot of blood, and you weren't there. Whoever took you away left your hat and your whip, and a little sealed wood box. I took those back with me to America, and gave the box to Marcus. That's all I know."

He is listening so carefully, but he shakes his head. "This part is still someone else's story, but oh, Marion." And he's holding her close.

She's had her eyes closed but she opens them, and looks past Indy's shoulder to see Alexandre's face, with tears streaming down as if he has just lost his entire universe, though he looks at Indy with joy.

 

### XIII

The rest of the day feels fragmented, splintered, as if she were living in two time zones and places at once.

Alexandre's measuring look, and his voice, flat. "You were not honest with me."

They stand outside, away from the tents, away from Indy, who, exhausted by emotion, has lain down for a nap.

"I had reasons," she says. "I was told that coming here was unsafe. For all I knew, you were your father all over again."

He flushes with anger. "Who told you this?"

It's time. "Dr. Henry Jones, Sr."

Alexandre blinks once and stares her down. "He knew?"

"No." She shakes her head, her loose hair flying around her face. It's been a long time since she's let it loose in this kind of heat; she can feel it on the back of her neck, shading her from the sun. She puts on her hat and gives him back a steady look that she hopes is reliable. "No. He had no idea, and neither did I. Henry's concerned about the dig itself."

Now Alexandre looks confused. "I don't understand."

She feels a hundred years older than him. "What are you really looking for here?"

His shoulders drop, their stiffness gone. "The Ark of the Covenant, and all the things with it. The ceremonial garb, the tools, the great gold candlestick."

"I can tell you right now, you're not going to find some of that." She glances about. Too many workmen. Too many people who may overhear in part and misunderstand totally. "We need to talk."

"Yes. And I want to meet this Sulla of yours, too. Who is he?"

It's her turn to look surprised. "You've been here how long, more than a month, and you've not met Sulla Al'Hamza?"

"Al'Hamza? He works at the Ministry of Antiquities, I think?" He shakes his head, confused. "I don't remember him. Wait, his last name is familiar."

"It should be. His son Muhammad is the head man of your diggers." Her voice is tart, but she doesn't mean it to be. She takes care to soften it. "I think you should come to the house tonight and meet everyone --"

"All right." His eyes still betray hurt under the anger.

"--but you will have to be honest with us, too. It's too dangerous for all of us if you're not. Can you promise to answer whatever we ask?"

"Yes." He cocks his head. "I presume you'll tell me about the danger then."

She nods. "And answer your questions. Will Indy be safe here without you?"

She would never have had to ask that question before. She could never have imagined asking it.

"Yes. I will ask Mahmoud to stay with him; he has been with me from the beginning, and I trust him. He stayed with Indy when we had dinner. And it's more a matter of having someone nearby than anything else."

"It was. Now it may be different." Now that Indiana Jones knows his name again, but still doesn't comprehend what that may mean to others.

They are walking toward his work tent, in which Yusuf waits anxiously. She nods to Yusuf, who smiles broadly, but his smile leaches away at the look on her face. "Yusuf Al'Hamza, this is Alexandre Belloq, who has cared for our mutual friend for many years. Alexandre wishes to meet your father and the others tonight, but he also does not want to leave our friend alone. Would you arrange something?"

Alexandre glances sharply from Yusuf to herself. "Is everyone you know related, Mary? Or should I call you Marion?"

"It just seems like it sometimes." She takes off her hat, now that they're in shade, and fans herself with it. "And you can call me either. Indy knows me as Marion, but my late husband called me Mary."

Yusuf inclines his head. "Excuse me; I will speak with my brother. He will arrange a patrol to keep away jackals." And he leaves, pacing quickly with a rolling gait that looks just like his father's walk.

"You said I wouldn't find what I'm seeking."

"Not all of it."

"Does this mean you know where it is?"

"Tonight. I promise you."  
"All right." He's not looking at her face now, but at her hands on the camera equipment that Yusuf has handed back to her. "Here, let me take some of this. I think we could all use a drink."

When he reaches for the camera that is slipping out of her hand she leans forward to catch it, and the gold chain that has been stuck to her skin with perspiration comes loose and slips out of the neck of her blouse.

The pendant swings free, nearly hitting him in the hand.

She puts her hand around it to drop it back inside her clothing, but stops. If she's going to ask him to be honest, she has to start somewhere for herself.

"What is that? It's very beautiful," Alexandre says in the voice that his father used to speak of her in a white dress.

She opens her hand. "This is the reason you will not find the ark."

The golden headpiece of the staff of Ra shines on her hand, its glow unfaded by the years, the ruby eye of the great bird fierce as it cradles the crystal in its spread wings.

"You found it."

"No."

"No?"

"Indy found it, here. It's a very long story. I can show you the room where it was, but I'm not going into it, if you don't mind."

"But there must be more there." He can't tear his eyes away from the pendant. "Why?"

"Snakes." She feels uncomfortable and drops the pendant back into hiding. "Too many snakes. I'll tell you tonight."

He turns away and pours more lemonade for them. It's been cooling by evaporation, not ice, but it feels wonderful going down her throat.

"Will you tell me what my father did?" His voice is level, his face still turned away as he puts the remaining lemonade back into its cool place.

"What I can." When he turns back toward her, she adds, "Some of it I don't want to remember."

"Fair enough." He sits down in the chair opposite her, the table with its tray of salvaged fragments behind them. "I confess I don't know what to make of you, Marion. I am grateful beyond words that you were able to tell Hank who he is, and give him back something I have  
been unable to do. But I must say, I also feel the slightest bit resentful."

She's not going to misunderstand him, she hopes. She nods for him to continue.

"Hank has been my best friend for more than a decade; he's been my only friend much of this time. I want what is best for him, but I don't want to lose him because of you."

This isn't a surprise.

"What do you think will happen?" she asks.

"I think you will tell Dr. Henry Jones, Sr., that you have found his son. And I think that Dr. Jones will come here and take him away, to somewhere that will mend his broken legs, and give him back the kind of life he should have had all along. And I will no longer have someone in my life who is more than a brother to me."

She shakes her head. "I don't think so."

"No? And why not? If the father wants the best for him, that would certainly mean taking him away from here."

An unexpected smile crosses her lips. "Compared to some of the digs Henry's worked on, this is a paradise." She sets the glass aside. "Would you give him a chance? And give me a chance, to help Indy remember who he is?"

I love him, too, Alexandre.

Maybe the words she hasn't spoken have been heard. "What do you really do now? You're not an archeologist, are you?"

"I do work with a small shipping firm, arranging transportation of valuable and fragile cargo. Sometimes it's crystal goblets, sometimes it's horses. I'm not a tomb robber, like your father." That was harsh, but it had to be said. "I've worked on excavations since I was a child. I know enough about Egyptian archeology to run this site as well as you do, but I would let Sulla help me do it -- unless you have a good reason not to."

"I'll tell you that tonight." His face is closed again, but she sees thought in it, and consideration. He's not shutting her out as much as making space for himself to think, and she can accept that.

And then Yusuf returns, to tell her that Muhammad and two of his best friends will stay tonight and walk guard on the site and throughout the camp, to make sure no intruders bother anyone.

"Eight, then?" she asks Alexandre, who nods.

Alexandre walks her and Yusuf the hundred yards to the nearest street and flags down a taxi for them. "Tonight then." But he kisses her hand without sarcasm, and she thinks maybe, just maybe, he may be willing to talk freely by then.

 

### XIV

Sulla's face, hearing the news, could have been the model for an icon of a beaming saint, if anyone ever painted happy icons.

* * *

"Tonight? Here?" Fayah held the teapot steady, pouring for her.

"Yes. It seemed ... best to do it now."

"At eight? Good. We can get a look at him."

She pauses, the cup part way to her lips, and puts it down again. Fayah waits.

"Would you ask someone to tell Katanga to come as well?"

"Are you sure this is what you want?" Fayah's voice is gentle.

"No, but it's the right thing to do."

"Then it will be done." She calls for her youngest son, a slender teen-ager, and gives him rapid-fire instructions.

* * *

She is in her room upstairs, supposedly taking a nap, but she's holding Indy's hat in her hands, touching the worn felt with her fingertips, smelling the faint salt of his sweat in the hatband. Even after all these years it still feels like him. It makes her imagine that its owner will walk through the door and snatch it out of her hands to put it on his head, then lean down and pull her into his arms for a long, delicious kiss that will lead to more...

No. She can't let herself go there.

That day is gone.

It's easier for her to play with the whip, to run its supple length through her hands and feel the woven leather that she has kept oiled and ready. It moves well, without breaks or dry spots that would fracture in action.

But it still reminds her of the way it coiled against his hip, and the sturdy warm flesh underneath...

No, stop, she tells herself.

* * *

She hasn't had flashbacks like this in years. She hasn't allowed them.

When Peter died, the last of the people she truly loved, she thought she'd locked her heart. It didn't matter that they'd had six months, or that it was a hurried wartime marriage. Peter had traveled; he knew what it was to live in a different culture, how that made a person critical of her own society once she was back within it. He didn't understand archeology, and he didn't care about what it was like to run a bar in the Himalayas or any of the other things she'd done. He loved her; he cared about her, not as a sideline to a profession or because he needed something from her. The only thing he'd needed was to be loved in return.

She wasn't the best at loving anyone, but she'd done as well as she could, learning from him, and she'd looked forward to having time with him -- until the day time ran out.

And now Peter is long gone, buried at sea.

And now Indy is back, but not as he was.

And ... and ...

* * *

She falls into a restless sleep, and is wakened by Fayah's daughter, Mira, just before sunset.

"Are you all right, Maryon?"

She nods slowly, though she feels as if everything she's known is dragging her by the hair to somewhere she doesn't want to go. "I'll be fine. Is there coffee?"

Mira smiles. "One moment, let me bring you some while you find something to wear."

She nods again. There's water in the basin, and she splashes it on her face; that helps.

The coffee helps, too. It's hot and sweet, and it jerks her back to consciousness in three seconds flat. Mira, watching, laughs. "That's much better. There is food on the table when you are ready; I will make sure Yusuf does not eat it all." And she goes, closing the door behind her.

It's a family dinner, not a state occasion, but she doesn't want to wear the same wrinkled things she wore at the site, if for no other reason than luck. She puts on a blue skirt that keeps the sun off her legs and doesn't cling, and a white shirt she found in a bargain shop in Marseilles. She tucks the shirt in, and rolls up the sleeves, and feels much more capable of dealing with whatever the evening brings. Her hair defeats her; rather than wrestle it into a chignon she gives in and braids it quickly into the single tail down her neck that she wore before the War. That will have to do.

She wears the medallion on the outside of the shirt now; she's among friends, and those who don't know its story will know very soon.

When she goes downstairs, she finds couscous and lamb and fruit and fresh bread, and no indication that Yusuf has been stinted for her sake. She loses herself in the food briefly, reveling in the flavors and spicy aromas, and listens to the men talk of politics and news.

They sit around the big table longer than usual, waiting. Katanga arrives at half past seven, nods to her, sits near Sulla, who is playing dogs-and-jackals with the grandchildren and is drawn into their game. He coaches Sulla's grandson, who sits on his lap, and watches as the  
granddaughter sweeps all her dogs into their home space before the jackals can catch up.

She offers to help Fayah, but is told not to worry about it. Fayah gives her a tray of sweet pastries for the table, and she nibbles on one as she goes back into the room.

Then the children go upstairs and the men pull out the backgammon board and sit down to serious play. She is excluded from this only because she wants to be; she's not interested in playing something when she's so anxious that her skin is itching. She takes a magazine from a small bookshelf and turns the pages slowly, skimming the articles.

It could be any other evening, any gathering of family and friends on a warm spring evening, except for the way her heart races when she hears noises outside the door.

* * *

"Perhaps there has been trouble," Sulla suggests hesitantly. "We should have heard from Muhammad by now; he said he would send word..." He is up, reaching for his jacket, and Katanga is standing as well, irresolute, waiting.

"What's that?"

She can hear something different on the other side of the door. A taxi, stopping, letting someone out. Motor noise as the vehicle leaves again. A hesitant knock.

Sulla surges toward the stairs, but is met by Muhammad, part way up. "What --" He looks down, past Muhammad, and his jaw drops.  
"I'm sorry it took so long." That voice, so familiar, with noises she hasn't heard before -- dull thuds. "I don't move as fast as I did when I was younger. Must be the mileage."

She is at the top of the stairs herself, gazing down over Sulla's shoulder at Alexandre's face. "I couldn't leave him behind, you know."

And Indy looks up -- at Sulla -- and his face brightens. "Sulla? Is that you?" He is on walking crutches, balanced precariously, but standing and walking, however slowly.

"Oh, Indy, my friend!" Sulla is hugging him unselfconsciously, sliding a strong arm around him to help him up the stairs, with Muhammad on the other side. Between them they move upstairs fairly quickly, so that she must flatten herself against the door to let them by.

"It is good to have you in this house again, Indiana Jones," Fayah says, formally, but her broad smile echoes her husband's in joy. "Please, sit, have something to eat."

And she's watching his face, and Alexandre's face, and because she cannot stop herself she looks at Katanga. Katanga has been watching her, from the other side of the room, reading her reactions, and his face is shuttered, his emotions reserved behind those walls he can put up so easily.

 

### XV

She is not part of the conversation for a long time. She is there, at the table, sitting near Indy, who touches her hand at times as if trying to reassure himself that this is not a dream. But she is background, an extra on the set, more than furniture but not a player.

She has no lines to say.

For a while, it's enough just to be there, to watch Indy's face moving and hear his voice, even though it's not the face she loved, and the voice is rougher than it was. She sits back in her chair, listening and watching as Alexandre tells again the story of how they met, and as Hank, now Indy, adds his own comments. She will remember them later, she knows, but for now it's enough just to let the sound flow over her.

Sulla, in turn, tells Indy of his present job with the Ministry of Antiquities, of his pride in his sons (all of whom have been introduced, though she's sure everyone realizes Indy's not going to remember the names), and his daughters, most of whom have left by now with their children and husbands. A few, whose names she can't recall either, are clustered toward the back of the room, at the other end of the table, and she knows they will remember whatever happens and take the word back to the others. That is how it is here, though if Sulla asks that the evening remain "within the family", as she suspects he has already done, they won't spread the word in the cafes.

That's good. In retrospect, she's starting to regret her escapade with the hat and bullwhip in the market, as it would undoubtedly bring back memories of before the war, and start people asking too many questions. She winces inwardly; it wasn't the smartest thing she's done in a while.

Katanga is speaking now, talking about her, telling about how she found him working to rebuild his ship after the war -- it had been commandeered by the British, who had returned it with their compliments and far too many bullet holes and other bits of damage to repair without moneuy -- and how the two of them had searched out and found the survivors of the old crew and set out in business together. His eyes are on her now, and they're glowing with pride. He tells how they have made a good business and a good life for themselves on the water; they own two more ships, with other crews, whose business she manages, but his own battered ship, well-refurbished, is still the apple of his eye.

It's not hard to see that he's extending that category to include her, though it confuses Indy a bit. Indy's still obviously trying to reconcile the difference in years -- for him, it's a fast jump from 1942 to 1955 -- but he's smiling and acting as if it all makes sense.

Alexandre is glancing back and forth as if he were at a tennis match, from her to Katanga and back, and it's not hard to see him adding up the clues. She keeps her head high and returns his glances. She's proud of her work too; she started with an ability to speak several languages and know the value of certain old objects, and she has turned those skills into a livelihood that keeps  
her clothed, fed, sheltered and entertained.

And then Indy reaches over to take her hand, and she feels the walls she's built around her heart crumbling, transmuting, turning to silken tent cloth.

She can't pull back from him; it would be misunderstood by everyone. She smiles back. It's all she can do to keep herself in one place. She squeezes his hand -- so muscular, now, even more so than before -- and lets it go.

And it's then that Alexandre asks her, "You said something earlier about knowing where the Ark is, Marion?"

Indy turns toward him, confused. "Is that what you're digging for, Alex?"

"In part. It's a long story, and probably a very boring one."

Sulla takes the hint, and asks the remaining children to excuse them. In the confusion, Indy leans toward her and murmurs, "Did I say something wrong? We did find the Ark, didn't we?"

"Yes, but I didn't want to tell him at the site. Too many other people," she murmurs back.

"Good thought." And he straightens and puts his other hand on Alexandre's arm. "I don't remember everything yet, you know, but --"

"That's all right, Hank." Alexandre pauses. "I guess I should call you Indiana now."

"You don't have to, Alex."

It's a private moment, in public, and she glances away. The situation is growing clearer for her, and she's not ready to think about it.

Of course, it's natural for them to be so close. They've been together every day for longer than she's been with Katanga, and in more intimate circumstances. The closest that she and Katanga have come to that kind of caretaking was when he was shot through the arm by a stowaway trying to escape from Morocco, and she was changing the dressings on the wound and trying to keep it from becoming infected. She, on her part, has seldom been sick at all, barring the occasional virus that she cures with a combination of garlic, ginger and the herbal medicines she finds in the bazaars. And she takes care of herself.

It's not the same. It is the same.

Her head hurts.

* * *

Another round of coffee. They remain at the table, though proper manners would have them moving to the cushion-strewn living room, because it's easier for Indy to sit on a chair. When the tale of the Ark starts, Alexandre says, "But where does it begin?"

"For us," Indy says, "with Marion's father, Abner Ravenwood, in the early '30s. He and my father were on a dig together a few miles away from here. I was Abner's grad student, and Marion was just out of school, and Abner gave Marion a medallion he found for a birthday present. You still have it, don't you?"

It's then that she realizes just how blind he has become. She puts the chain over her head, letting it dangle in the warm light from the lanterns, and lays it gently in his hand. "This is the headpiece of the staff of Ra."

"The key to the whole puzzle. I had to chase her down in Nepal to get it."

"And me with it," she reminds him, "since you burned down my bar."

"I didn't do that, the Germans did."

"That's right, blame it on someone else, as usual." But she's laughing, and so are the others. This is the Indy she knew.

"Anyway, we came here from Nepal to stay with Sulla, and he got me onto the dig." Indy smiles in Sulla's general direction. "Sulla dropped me into the map room, I found the right place to dig, using the headpiece, and found the Ark, which the Nazis took from me."

"My services were relatively inconsequential to the quest," Sulla says modestly.

"You found the man to translate the writing on the headpiece. You got me back out of the bazaar and away from the Germans. Those aren't small things."

"Well..." But Sulla is pleased. "I did a little."

"You did a great deal," she tells him. "Especially while Jones here was playing cowboys-and-Indians with the Nazis."

"Now, I don't remember that," Indy says, but he's got that smile curling the corner of his mouth, and she knows he does remember at least some of it.

"Hey, don't ask me. I wasn't there all the time." She puts up her hands.

"What about when you shot up their airfield and set their big plane on fire?" Katanga asks, his voice teasing.

"I couldn't help it. It was something I just had to do," she retorts. "Besides, it was fun."

"Fun?" Alexandre is looking at her as if she were insane. "You blew up an airfield for fun?"

"It wasn't like that, exactly. Indy was getting into trouble again and it was my turn to rescue him. And I did. Simple as that."

"Was that before or after you taught yourself to use the machine gun on the aircraft to blow apart everything else around you?" Sulla is smiling broadly, though she remembers him going pale with nerves at the time.

"Probably during. Hey, I didn't destroy the plane on purpose. Was it my fault if there was a fire and some spilled gasoline?"

"I think you attract excitement, Maryon," Katanga says. "This is not necessarily a bad thing."

"I think I'm confused again," Alexandre admits.

"The short version is that we got the Ark away from the Germans, and Sulla asked Katanga to carry us out of Egypt with it. Where were we going?" she asks.

"I believe you asked me to take them to France or Italy, wherever they could contact the proper Allied authorities..." Katanga considers. "Of course, we did not even get out of Egyptian waters."

"The Nazis caught up with us in the Nile delta, and took the Ark. And me."

That's as much as she will say in public about it.

"And Hank, I mean Indiana?"

"I swam," Indy says, straight-faced. "More or less. I remember being tied to the top of the Nazi U-boat for what seemed like days, until we got to the island. And don't ask me what island it was; I didn't know then and I don't know now."

Alexandre is listening intently. "I assume my father was there?"

"Oh, yeah, he was there all right. He's the one who grabbed Marion. He --" Indy stopped short, as if he had just recalled who was sitting there.

"The Nazis threatened to blow my ship out of the water when we tried to keep her and Dr. Jones from being taken." Katanga glances at her, and she gives him back the "I'm all right" smile, which he returns.

Alexandre nods. "What happened on the island?"

"They captured Indy again, and made us walk with them to a place they'd set up to test the Ark, to see what it would do." She is trying to remember everything, to find a way around what will have to be said. "We were tied to a light pole away from the main area. There were lights, and cameras and a generator to run them, and a lot of men; I think most if not all of the U-boat crewmen were there."

She remembers their stares, and their snickers, and their raw comments. She's not going to talk about that.

Indy picks up the description as if they'd rehearsed it. "Belloq was wearing fake ritual garb --something the Nazis had put together -- and they opened the Ark. Belloq told me once he thought it was a radio for talking to God. I remember when they opened the lid, and found sand inside, he was furious."

"And then the noise started." She could hear it again, that deep rumbling purr. "And all the lights blew, and the generator and cameras shorted out. And you told me to shut my eyes and not look."

"Not look?" Alexandre is incredulous.

"One does not look at the power of God," Sulla says in a solemn voice. "It is not a toy for man to play with."

"All I know," she says, as honestly as she can, "is that I heard a deep rumble, like a big cat purring and growling, and then the sound of a strong wind, and then screams. And more wind, blowing so hard I thought it would blow me apart."

"A noise like a tornado, and then it was so quiet." Indy's voice is reflective. "And when I moved my hands, the ropes were gone. "

"And?" Alexandre is on the edge of his seat.

"We were alone with the Ark, and nothing else. No people. Nothing."

"My father was there?"

"He was, and then he wasn't." Indy shrugs. "I don't have a good explanation for it. I just know it happened."

"What I saw, from the ship," Katanga says, "was an enormous pillar of fire and smoke, like something from the days of the Prophet, or our father Abraham. It rose above the island and opened the sky, and then it disappeared." When the others turn to him, he continues, "After the U-boat took Dr. Jones and Maryon, we followed it very carefully. Sulla had told me he would require an accounting from me if they were harmed, and I did not want to face him without trying to get them back. We were about forty knots away when we saw it -- and I noted which of the islands it was, and we went there, looking for survivors." He smiles at her. "By the time we reached the island it was morning, and we saw the small fire that Maryon had set near the beach."

"We couldn't be sure there weren't more Nazis back at the submarine," she explained. "I was so glad to see Katanga and his crew that day, I can't tell you."

"What did you do then?" Alexandre asks.

"We brought the shore boat into a cove near to where the Ark was, put it back in its crate and brought it aboard. I don't know what happened on that island, but the crate was unharmed." Katanga shakes his head at that. "And then we sailed around the island, discovered there were no other people in the U-boat dock, loaded up as much fuel as we could take and all their supplies -- and used the rest of the fuel to blow that boat out of the water. Ah, that was satisfying." His broad smile lights the room. "And then we took them to France."

Alexandre seems to need a moment to take all this in. "Then my father truly ... disappeared."

"God has dealt with him," Sulla says.

"I'd certainly say so," Indy concurs.

Alexandre Belloq slumps back in his chair as if every tense muscle in his body had released at the same time. "Then I need not worry about him showing up suddenly to disrupt my life."

"I think it's pretty unlikely," she says, "Um... weren't you going to tell us about how you came to be at the Tanis site?"

He nods. "I have to ask all of you something, first. Can you promise me that the information will not leave this room? It's for your own safety."

Everyone is nodding, but she asks, "Why?"

"For your own safety."

She shrugs. "The Nazis are gone, Alexandre."

"The Islamic conservatives are not, and they are not friendly to people excavating antiquities."

Indy turns toward his friend. "Alex, what aren't you telling me? You've never exactly said who was paying the bills for this dig."

Alexandre is biting his lower lip, uncertain. He looks so young, but she knows he's the same as she was at that age -- which is far too old for his apparent years. She runs her mind quickly through the long list of problems that can occur in any way related to an archeological dig -- most of which Abner had to deal with at some time -- and comes up with half a dozen likely prospects.

"The excavation is sponsored by an inter-university consortium," he begins. "I'm not specifically looking for the Ark -- though I'd love to know where it is now if you have any idea -- but for the other artifacts that would have been with it. The genuine priests' robes. The urim and thummim. The great golden candlesticks that stood next to the altar. These are things that would have traveled with the Ark, that would have had to be with it when it went into hiding."

Alexandre is about to go on when Indy puts his hand out. "Who is funding it?"

Another pause.

"Monsieur Belloq, if you please, we have been honest with you. Perhaps we have been too honest." Sulla's brow is creasing in a way that she knows is not friendly. "It is your turn."

Alexandre closes his eyes for a moment, then says, "Three French universities, including the University of Paris -- and the three newest universities in Israel. They want me to bring their holy objects home to Eretz Yisrael, if not to Jerusalem then at least to the same land to which the Israelites were led." He takes a breath. "Nobody knows this except the universities themselves, and now you. It's been hidden under layers of paperwork, so that we won't be killed by the various political factions here that don't want foreigners taking anything out of the country."

Israeli money, on a dig in Egypt to look for ancient Hebrew treasures -- and the dig run by an Algerian Frenchman and a half-crippled American who was still trying to put his own history together, let alone the history he was researching.

"Jones, you've done it again," she says, and it's true. Only Indiana Jones could inadvertently get himself involved so easily in a situation that was so dangerous and so internationally confused.

They're all talking at once. She gets up from the table, ignoring the eyes on her. When she comes back from her room, she's carrying the box of shards, a piece of paper and a pen, and they stop to look at her. "Your father asked me to send him word if I found you," she says, putting them all on the table. "A small piece for word of you, the largest one if I want him to drop everything and come here." She pushes the fragments in front of him so he can run his fingers over them. "I thought you might like me to send him a note -- you want to tell me what to say?"

He seems relieved to be out of the larger conversation humming around them. "Yeah. That's a good idea." His fingers glide over the broken tile, "What is this, Ptolemaic? No, the edges are too crisp. It's a fake, right?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Tell you what; we'll get Sulla to loan us some glue and we'll put it back together while I tell you what to say, and then we can send him the whole damn thing." He's putting the pieces in order, carefully, surely.

Alexandre and Katanga are discussing something. Sulla is conferring with them and with his sons about politics. Fayah has taken one look at them, gone out and come back with a pot of glue and some old newspapers to work on, which she puts under the shards.

She writes the date on the paper and waits for him to begin.

 

### XVI

Sulla takes her aside after Indy dictates the letter. The tile, reconstructed, is resting on newspaper until its glue dries. "I am not comfortable with the idea of Dr. Jones coming from France alone. Too dangerous."

"Aren't you underestimating him a bit?" Indy says, and she and Sulla remember that Indy's hearing was always acute.

"I am concerned for him, Indy. The world has changed. Perhaps some of the ire against archeologists that exists among the people here is a result of the German dig before the war, when the British allowed them in and then could not control them. Perhaps it is simply radicals  
who want to evict all foreigners; some of the radicals want to destroy the artifacts themselves as being unholy."

"They are ignorant," Muhammad says. For such a large man, he moves as quietly as Indy once did. "When we learn our history, we learn of ourselves as well as of the past."

Sulla looks frustrated. So much for confidentiality.

Katanga leans forward, resting his elbows on the table. "I agree with Sulla. Dr. Jones may well be in danger -- but so then is our shipmate, Nikami, who is working with him. Perhaps I have a solution."

She turns toward him. "You would go to get them?"

"And why not? I cannot excavate tombs, and you have enough people to stand guard or to listen in the markets and cafes, especially since we all seem to trust one another now." His eyes flicker over Alexandre briefly to rest on Indy. "I have found enough cargo to pay the cost of fuel -- and you did say that Dr. Jones would be able to pay something for his passage, did you not, Maryon?"

She nods. "Go to Philippe or Cruzon LeGris in Marseilles; they should have a shipment for you to bring back here. When we were there last they said it would be a few weeks, and it's about time now."

"Good. Then it's settled. I will take the ship to Marseilles and bring back Dr. Jones myself."

"In that case," she says, "I'll cable Henry in the morning to expect you."

"What will you say that won't have him grabbing the next government transport?" Indy asks.

"Potsherds found at Tanis. Charlie brings info."

All the Egyptians, and Alexandre, stare at her, entirely confused. Even Katanga is raising an eyebrow at her. "I have had several names, Maryon, but that is not any of them."

Indy pauses. "Wait a minute. Charlie Stuart. The prince 'over the water'. Wait for word of a ship."

"Yes. He'll understand that."

"Then it is settled." Katanga looks happier. He has always been happiest in action, of whatever kind, but he far prefers water to land, she knows. "I will gather the men and we will leave tonight. In a week, less than a week, we shall return."

"It will be good to see Nikami again." She feels, suddenly, how much quieter it has been at Sulla's house, even with all the children and grandchildren, than it ever has been on the ship with Ali's singing and Nikami's storytelling.

"Yes." Katanga's eyes are on her. She hands him the letter, in its envelope, and wraps the tile in cardboard and newspaper to brace it, then puts it into a sack he can carry. "I'll see you to the door."

They go down the stairs together. Katanga pauses by the door. "You will be ... here when I return?"

She nods. "I'll have to be -- you're taking my other home with you."

"So I am." He raises her hand to his lips. "Be careful, Maryon."

She starts to pull her hand away, uncertain and irked. "I can take care of myself."

"Yes, you can. But I was thinking of your heart."

"Didn't you tell me, more than once, that I have none?" She is retreating, trying to turn the silken tent into something more sturdy, even a stockade made of sticks.

"Only when you are getting the best prices for us." His hand moves to cup her head and he kisses her. It's not just a friendly farewell kiss. This is both certain and questioning, and tells her too much of what he's thinking for her own peace.

"Oh, go to France," she tells him, when she can speak again. "And come back with Henry Jones."

"If I do not, Sulla will never forgive me." He opens the door.

"What about what I'd forgive?" she retorts.

"That is a separate matter, Maryon." But he smiles at her before he leaves.

She sees inquisitive faces turning toward her from the street; it's almost as late as when they came back from the dig a few days earlier. When she closes the door, she's glad that she and Katanga were speaking the Greek sailors' patois, and not English. Or Arabic.

* * *

Sulla offers the visitors a place to stay overnight; it's too late to go back to the dig and get any sleep at all. Surely they can return there in the morning refreshed. They accept. Alexandre and Indy are to sleep in the spare room on the same floor, as soon as Muhammad and Yusuf can move in a couple of the small, extra bedrolls and mattresses that Sulla keeps in case of guests.

Before they go in for the night, she goes to her room upstairs and brings down a couple of things that she puts into Indy's hands. "These are yours," she tells him. "I've never known you to be without both of them, so I think you need them back."

Indy's mouth is tense for a moment, until he runs his hands over the shape of the hardened, worn felt. "My hat. Thanks, Marion."

"What is this? A bullet hole?" Alexandre leans in for a closer look. "That's where your scar came from, Hank. Someone tried to shoot you."

"Someone was always trying to shoot him, back then," she says, making it more of a joke. "But he used to fight them off with this." And she puts the black snake whip into his hands.

"Oh, god," he says, almost as a prayer. "I remember this." He runs his hands the length of the whip, smoothing the surface of the braided leather. "You've kept it in good condition."

"Where did you find these?" Alexandre asks. "In the place where you thought Hank would be?"

She nods. "They were in a corner, tossed aside."

"Thanks. I don't know what to say." Indy's mouth is working a little, as if he'd like to say more if he knew it wouldn't be public.

"That's okay." She doesn't want to talk about a lot of things yet; she's not sure if she wants to talk about them at all.

She watches them move into the spare room, Indy with the hat back on his head as if it had never been anywhere else, and goes up to her room.

* * *

The next week, for her, is full of sand. For all intents and purposes, she is out on the site every day working with Alexandre and Indy. She is lowered into the Map Room with the headpiece on a staff, and watches as the sun fills the room with winged light whose heart is  
focused on the Well of Souls.

Alexandre, with her, is scribbling down notes as fast as possible from the floor. "You could find that outside, yes?"

"Yes." It's hot and the air is close in there, without the mixed blessing of a breeze that dries sweat but dehydrates as well. "I'm not a surveyor like Indy, but I could find it from where other things were."

"Good." He brushes sand away from the array of holes carved into the stone at her feet, where the end of the staff rests. "Move the staff to here. This hole."

She does so, and the light is refocused on a smaller building, off to the side. "That is what I want, the robing room. It's the anteroom where the robes were kept, and the ritual tools was stored."

His finger points to one more place, and she puts the staff into it. The last of the light flows through the crystal in the headpiece to strike a small building further back. "What is that?"

"I'm not sure. Probably the priests' quarters, or another storage place."

"Worth a look."

They are pulled out by Muhammad and Sulla, who has arrived since they went into the room. "You have found something?" Sulla's eyes glow.

"Sulla, where's the old Well of Souls from here?" She turns, shading her eyes with her hand, until she faces a rise, a small hill, in the sand. "There?"

Sulla nods. "But the Germans were digging over there." He points further over. "And, during the war, when nobody was supposed to be working on this site, the police chased vandals away from that area." He pointed again, and Alexandre sighed.

"We may be too late. I'll have to check my measurements, but they may have already found the priests' robing room and the storage area."

"Wouldn't we have heard about it?" she asks.

"Perhaps. I will check at work," Sulla says. "Those records are not often viewed. I will see what I can find."

 

### XVII

Work started before dawn, digging out the sand and debris that had been tumbled into what they now figure is the priests' robing room. She has been there all night, and by late morning is too tired to continue. She nods to Alexandre, who sends her to his own tent to rest in privacy for an hour.

No use killing herself over a pile of rocks and sand.

She arranges the inner tent drape for both privacy and air circulation, and lies down on the narrow wood-framed cot. It's only a moment, as she listens to the wind on the sand, before it metamorphoses into the sound of...

water.

A shower, the fall of droplets striking the metal walls. She's on the ship, checking the wiring on a light in the passageway near the largest showers, a gang shower with several heads. There are smaller showers near the cabins -- her cabin and Katanga's cabin share one, and so do the first and second mates and the engineer, but the crew has the gang shower toward the stern. The light has gone out there too often, so she's up on a ladder with a flashlight in her hand, peering at a tangle of wires under the tipped safety cage and wishing she had something to test them with.

And she turns, slightly, and sees them.

Two of the younger crew members, who've been there a year or so, in the shower together, kissing ardently, dark on dark in the shadows, hands reaching and touching ...

Well, it's not the military, and it's not her business. They don't treat her any differently when she's sleeping with the captain, so it's not up to her to say anything to anyone. So she holds very still and watches quietly for a moment or two, from the corner of her eye, until one goes down on his knees and the other starts to moan quietly. Then she climbs back down the ladder and leaves, carrying the ladder, certain that neither of them will hear her over the sound of rushing water or their own heartbeats.

Suddenly she knows what she's seeing must be a dream, because it's happening all over again, but the faces are changing, the bodies are different --

"Marion?"

\-- and then she wakes up.

"Wh-what?"

"I apologize for waking you, but we have found something." Alexandre is so excited he can't hold still. He is pacing in the small tent, nearly bumping her cot on each turn.

"Something big."

"Perhaps. I did not want to finish opening the room until you were there."

She pushes herself up off the cot, awake enough to realize she's not holding a ladder and a flashlight or a screwdriver and a light bulb, but sunglasses and a hat, which she puts on. It's an odd sense, this feeling of being in two places at once, as if she were traveling in time or space. Abner would have gone into a long philosophical hypothesis about the possibilities of time travel and deja vu, but that's beyond her. She just feels dislocated, but the feeling is familiar.

In one way or another, she's been dislocated for years.

She catches up to Alexandre at the edge of the bluff, turns to check the distance between where she stands and the tents and the old airstrip. "This should be one of the antechambers to the Well of Souls," she tells him, "but all you're going to find in it is a stack of really ugly mummies."

"What? Where?" Alexandre turns.

"Here." She waves a hand at the sand covering the stone blocks, and the one dislocated space in the wall of blocks where Indy had managed to push out the block to set them free.

"That's good to know, but that's not what I'm talking about." He takes her hand to lead her slightly above and behind this area. "I take it the Well of Souls should be over there, then, by that rise."

"Yes, but it's a total wreck. I don't even think the statues of Sobek are worth looking at now."

"Sobek? Fascinating. You must tell me more later." He's virtually dragging her along. She's not sure how she feels about that.

"You're not interested in the Well of Souls. Huhn." She pulls her arm free and hurries to bring herself even with him on the path. "Probably just as well. It's full of snakes."

"Snakes do not bother me." As if snakes were merely an academic concept, ended by closing a book. So his father had closed the book on her, when she had been dropped into the Well of Souls by the Nazis. So he had turned his back on her on the U-boat --

She forces herself away from that thought. That's only coming back because of the dream, because both took place in water more or less. Stupid mind, associating things. "What did you find?"

"Hey, Marion!" It's Indy, on his crutches, standing next to the entrance of something underground that has long been buried -- the sand is darker around the entrance than the light drifting around her feet or the larger piles that the diggers have made. "I think we're onto  
something good. I can smell it?"

"Yeah? What are you smelling, Indy?"

"Money. Something down there is worth a whole lot of money."

"You old horse-trader." She's getting used to dealing with him again, though she can see that Alexandre's not always comfortable with their byplay. "Okay, I'll bite. What kind of old horse do you think you've found?"

"Something that glitters." Alexandre murmurs in her ear, and she jumps at the touch of his breath. "I am not Howard Carter, but..."

"I see." She surveys the men around the entrance -- all of them taller than she was, and with broader shoulders regardless of other bodily dimensions. "Why do I think you want me to go in first?" The dark hole seems smaller the more she looks at it.

"I've already tried; I can't get through. Fasih is the only one of the diggers who is small enough, and he refuses to go in." Alexandre's eyes are begging her.

If she goes, for Indy it will be as if he were there.

"All right. I'll go in, but I want the best flashlight you've got, and a rope around me, and you pull me out no matter what." She is up in Alexandre's face about this, fiercely, before she can catch herself. The resemblance to his father is too much for her to take at times.

He's astounded by her. "Yes, yes, of course. I would never leave you in there."

"And even if he would, which he won't, I won't let it happen." Indy's voice pulls her away from him. He's leaning on his crutches, his hat brim low above his sunglasses. "You hear that, people? Anyone who wants to hurt this woman is going to get beat to death with my crutches,  
and I'm just the guy who will do it." He's raised his voice, and the diggers respond with smiles and a few obeisances, but no mockery. Mohammed, behind Indy, raises an eyebrow at her and nods.

"Okay. Here's what I want," she says, and the men scramble to do as she says. Mohammed himself ties the rope around her and promises to be on its other end. Alexandre offers her three flashlights of various sizes; she takes the big three-way hand lantern and hooks the loop at the end of the smaller flashlight to her belt. She accepts a pith helmet from Alexandre because it is sturdier than her hat and won't allow dirt to fall in her eyes.

She shines the light in through the gap they have made. It's between two undecorated but shaped blocks; they will have to work hard to move either one further, but perhaps from inside she can find a different entrance, a better path. She barely slides through, but remembers to shine the light at all of the floor first.

"I don't see any snakes," she says, and hears Indy breathe a sigh of relief. "I'm going in."

Muhammad positions himself next to her to feed her the rope. Once through the gap, she will be suspended above the floor probably twenty feet or so, They have rigged the harness around her chest and abdomen with two ropes, so that she can control the direction she faces.

The gap is almost too narrow; she turns her shoulders but has to take off the helmet, slide it through and put it back on afterward. She's never managed to put on much weight, even with better food after the war. Once through, she sees that she's come through the upper part of a dome, with a slanted inner wall, and she braces her feet against the wall and shines the torch around.

This is definitely an accidental opening. The real door, well blocked, is on her right, at about two o'clock, and she calls this back to them. There's no light except what comes from her lantern

Boxes, plenty of boxes. They look modern. And something else, over in the corner. "A little more rope, please."

She drops to the top of the nearest box, tugs on the rope to tell Muhammad to give her slack, and climbs down to look around.

These aren't ancient relics. They aren't even Victorian. She knows those markings, They're German, World War II, left here by the Nazis when they vacated the site after the Ark was taken away and their commanders disappeared. She calls up for a crowbar, and one is dropped near her; when she pries one of the crates open, she finds canned food and other supplies.

Useful, but not terribly interesting. She continues her walk, moving clockwise. Ah, the 'glitter' they'd seen -- German battle standards, the gilded swastika, laurel and eagle.

And, behind those, that shape in the corner turns out to be a couple of bodies, in uniform. The uniforms are in poor shape -- she suspects mice have had a field day with them -- but she can see the tank on a shoulder patch.

The Afrika Korps? Rommel? She frowns. That's ridiculous. Rommel wasn't anywhere near here.

The bodies are draped over another box. Well, they're dead; they might as well be mummies and she's dealt with those before though she's not thrilled about it. She cracks the box open with the crowbar, grabs a handful of what she finds, shoves it in her pockets, and tips the lid shut again, thinking of mice.

She's over near the door. She notes the distance and angle from where she came in, and continues around. There's no light coming in there; it's got to be well buried.

The only thing old about this room is the walls. She shines the lantern at them and sees hieroglyphs carved into the soft stone. Well, that should make Indy happy, if they can figure out how to get him up there to read them. And Alexandre. The carvings are broken in places,  
including where she climbed in; maybe whoever made them wasn't that popular in the first place. Or maybe someone got careless with a moving van, or its ancient equivalent.

No, wait. Over behind the second-last stack of identically-built German boxes there's a small bright spot, and she stoops to look at it. It's a small box, covered in what looks like enamel, pretty blues and greens, about the size of a dessert plate. She picks it up; it's not heavy.

When she tugs at the rope for Muhammad to draw her back up, she slings the lantern handle over her arm and concentrates on the light of the exit. The swinging lantern light makes her dizzy. She cradles the box against her chest, and manages to get out between the stones without scratching it.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," she tells them as Muhammad unties the ropes to free her.

"You found something, Marion. I can hear it in your voice." Indy is sitting on one of the cleared stones a few feet back from the entrance, out of Muhammad's way but near enough to hear her inside. This comforts her, when she thinks about it, and she takes his hand briefly, turns it up and puts the box on it in his lap.

"It's enamel," she tells him. "Blue and green. It was the only old thing down there, well, the only really old thing other than the wall carvings."

"Wall carvings." Alexandre's eyes are shining. "What era? What else?"

"The entrance is over there." She points. "Maybe twenty-five, thirty feet? Most of what's in here was German -- it looks like they stored things here when they vacated at the start of the war. Food, supplies, uniforms, equipment, all nicely crated."

"We can probably use some of that."

"The glitter you saw was the Nazi battle staff emblems. I don't know why they'd be piled in the corner like that; you'd think that they'd take those with them." She frowns. "There are a couple of bodies near the door. Afrika Korps."

"Afrika Korps?" Alexandre blinks. "Odd."

"And this." She unloads her pocket and hands him a wrapped packet of uncirculated wartime Reichsmarks. "Looks like someone's payroll. Any idea what old money's worth on the market today?"

"Marion." Indy's fingers are gently tracing patterns on the box, and she sees pomegranates and leaves and perhaps wings on the corners. "This is good."

"Tell me." She crouches next to him.

"This has some of the same patterns on it as the Ark did. I'm betting it's a container for some of the priest's ritual tools. The sacrificial knife, for instance. Did you open it?"

"No. I saved that for you."

Indy's smile is blinding. He touches her face with a smudgy hand.

The diggers are murmuring. Alexandre turns to them quickly. "We need you to dig in a different place -- let me show you." He leads them away, stuffing the money into his pocket. "I'm sorry to announce that what we've found is probably old supplies left by the Germans at the end of their dig here before the war, but it's possible that we might be able to use some of their equipment -- so let's see if we can get it out."

 

### XVIII

It takes the rest of the week for them to deal with the authorities, who haul away the bodies, and with the official inquiries that begin about the box of Deutschmarks. Except for giving her statement to the police, she has little to do that requires her to think.

She stares across the gold and red sand and misses the deep green water and the white foam around the ship's bow.

As she expects, the crates contain canned food and clothing, but also digging tools and equipment. Some of it will be sold, but the rest will be useful, one way or another.

She views a can of sauerkraut, dated 1938, with deep suspicion and consigns it to the stack that will be used to shore up a temporary wall.

* * *

Indy, at least, is happy. He sits in the work tent, cleaning the edges and borders of the box she brought him with a soft-haired brush. She sits next to him and hands him tools and brushes, and listens to him talk about the pomegranates on the trim, and the style of the engraving on the surface. The box isn't enamel, strictly speaking, but faience, the ancient glass of Egypt, showing  
that it was made here, possibly as a replacement for an earlier box because the style is not Egyptian.

She is there when he opens the box and finds the ivory-hilted knives in their disintegrating cloths, trimmed in gold. The bronze blade on the larger one is dulled, but the stone blade on the smaller knife could be used for surgery.

He takes his sunglasses off sometimes as he works. It's as if his sight is improving, ever so little, the more he remembers of the past. He still can't recall what happened in the tent where she found his hat and whip, but he can talk now about the restaurant they liked to eat at on Friday nights near the college, and he is interested in the stories she tells about working in San Francisco.

She can even talk with him about Peter, though she doesn't do it often. But when his name arises, Indy listens, with a kindness that feels broader than what she knew from him before.

Perhaps it's that they are both survivors now of a time only they remember.

When he asks about Marcus, and she has to tell him the news, he's quiet for a long time. He sits with his hands in his lap and his head bowed, and she wipes the tears from his face.

She's very glad that Alexandre is away in Cairo dealing with officials and not there to witness Indy's pain or misinterpret it. Sometimes Alexandre still feels so young to her, despite his hard life.

Indy says, quietly, "He didn't suffer. I'm glad he didn't suffer." She murmurs something, and he goes on, "He went with Dad and me to look for the Holy Grail back in '36, did you know that? Marcus, riding around on horseback through Petra. I was scared to death something would  
happen to him, but he's -- he was irrepressible."

"Did you find the Grail?" She doesn't really care. What matters is that he's talking.

"Yes." His head comes up, and she can see his eyes, still blue as the sky, but not focused on anything. "I found it, and I drank from it and Dad drank from it, and it healed him." His expression changes, and she can't follow all of the emotions he shows. Anger, fear, pain, love, loss. "But there was an earthquake and it was ... lost."

"But you found it. That's more than anyone else has done."

He nods, and puts his hand over hers. "But I still wonder about that knight that was there, guarding it."

"One of the brothers?" She grew up on that story; Henry used to tell it to her when she was a child, when he and her father worked together.

"Yes." He pauses. "I'm a little thirsty; you want some lemonade?"

When they have the glasses in their hands, she sits next to him and listens as he talks for the rest of the afternoon about Hitler's autograph, and the last of the brothers who were knights, and his father's umbrella. And something about a Nazi woman who had deceived him and his father, both.

* * *

Sometimes it feels as if she's spent all her life traveling through someone else's stories.

* * *

When Alexandre returns, exhausted and irritated from dealing with bureaucrats, she nods to him and leaves. She's been tired all day, but didn't take a nap in the spare tent because Indy needed company, and because she wanted to be that company.

Now she can be herself, for a while, as much as it is possible in this land.

She gets a ride back to Sulla's house with a truckload of workmen, who drop her off in front of the house and wave cheerfully to her as they drive away. She goes upstairs to greet Fayah, who puts aside her magazine and gets up to make lemonade. No one else is there; when she has had time to wash and put on clean clothes, she goes up on the roof to drink her lemonade under the pergola, to watch the sun set over the city.

"A difficult day." Fayah has brought the pitcher. She sits in an adjacent chair. "You look exhausted."

She nods. "Indy wanted to talk."

"About ..."

"No. He doesn't really remember that."

Fayah nods slowly. "Do you want him to remember?"

She shrugs tiredly. "I don't know. We're not the same people, but I feel as if I've gone further from who I was."

"Experience is not a bad thing." Fayah gazes out over the roof. "Sulla is not my first husband, you know."

She raises an eyebrow. "I thought you'd been together forever."

"We have known each other all our lives, yes, but I was married first to his cousin. Khalid died of a fever when we were married a year." Fayah is still watching the sunset, as if it would do something unexpected if her attention wavered. "I have been thinking of him, these past days, when I see you and Dr. Jones. I do not know that I would want Khalid to come back from the dead now."

"Because he would upset things and not understand." Her voice is quiet.

"Yes, but also because he would expect me to be the woman I was at eighteen, and not who I am now."

"If ... Khalid ... returned, what would Sulla do?"

Fayah smiles, and turns back toward her in the chair. "Some men are easier than others. Sulla would welcome him, but he would never let me or our children go. And Khalid would have to accept that." Fayah sips the lemonade. "It is not the same with yourself and Captain Katanga, is it?"

"I don't know what it is with us," she says, watching a bird fly over the rooftop gardens nearby. "We don't follow anybody's rules, but we've made a life for ourselves. Don't get me wrong, I love seeing Indy again, but ..."

"Your heart is not in sand any more, is it?"

She shakes her head. "No, not any more. But I haven't been able to say that to anyone."

The bird is still fluttering from one rooftop to another, as if it might be looking something.

"I believe that when you need to know what to say, you will know. The words will come." Fayah listens; footsteps are on the stairs. "That will be the children, back from school, and soon Sulla will be home. You know, Maryon, I have never traveled far, but seeing you makes me think I would like to do that some day. See other places, try new things." She gathers up the glasses and pitcher on a tray.

"Any time you want to come, we'll make room on the ship for you, if you like," she offers.

Fayah pats her on the shoulder on the way by. "I may take you up on that, with or without my stubborn old man. Perhaps my daughters would like to see the world as well. How would your sailors deal with that?"

"The same way they deal with me -- they behave or find another ship." She smiles, thinking of the crew, the odd mixture of personalities that has melded into a working venture. "I think Omo would be delighted to have more of us to cook for; he always wants to try new things that nobody else has ever heard of. You might find yourself swapping recipes."

"There are worse things to do than feed people." Fayah heads downstairs.

* * *

Whose story is she living now, her own or someone else's? Does it matter, as long as the story is told?

The story she'd imagined before the war has been rewritten so many times she doesn't even think she can find it in her life any more. Life has edited it, and she's rewritten to fill the cuts, and then rewritten and edited it again. So many changes, so many different ways of seeing the story -- as tragic, as painful, as exciting, as fulfilling, as adventure, as grief, as journey, as heroic and as  
ordinary.

She can't even think how it could be told now in only one language, seeing as how it has been lived in so many.

She hasn't even a clue how it will end, even from as far through as she's gotten -- but then she was never a fast reader. The recent cut-and-paste job she's seen in the last month has rumpled the pages; how she'll manage to fit it all together is anyone's guess.

But that's something to think about later, after the sun has set and the cooler evening breeze is washing over her. Now there are only long sepia shadows on the sides of the stone buildings and the golden sand.

 

### XIX

When she arrives at the dig the next morning, she finds chaos.

A few of the workmen, friends of Muhammad who have accepted her since her descent into the dark, run to tell her that the jackal has returned.

"Anubis was here!"

"No, the old gods are dead. It was a man."

"No, it was a ghost, a great being with the head of a dog."

"Anubis is angry! He attacks us."

She has been walking quickly; she breaks into a run toward the work tent, where she sees Muhammad -- standing guard? -- at the entrance.

Alexandre is nursing a tall drink of something that smells medicinal, even from where she stands. His head is bandaged, as is his left arm, and his face is bruised. Indy is unharmed, from what she can see, but his expression holds thunderclouds nearly as powerful as the ones she saw over that Greek island years ago. And he's swearing in some language so obscure she can only tell what he's saying by the way he's saying it. His fingers explore the edge of the bandage on Alexandre's scalp, as Alexandre winces but holds still.

"What happened?"

The glance Alexandre turns on her is as sardonic as any Indy has ever had. "I fell out of bed."

"Right. What really happened?"

"He fell out of bed," Indy says, pausing in his exploration of foreign expletives. "And hit his head on the tent pole as Anubis walked past."

"You saw Anubis?"

Alexandre shrugs. "I saw a man with the head of a jackal, standing about as far away as you are now. I stood up too fast, knocked my head on the tent pole, and when I stopped seeing stars he was gone."

"Alex, you're going to have a nasty headache."

"Thanks, but I've already got it." He stands carefully, as if his head will detach if he moves too quickly. "I don't suppose you've had any word about Dr. Jones."

"No. I had a telegram from Katanga three days ago that they were on their way back with a shipment and would stop in Alexandria briefly, but that's all." At Alexandre's raised eyebrow, she says, "We do have a business to run, you know."

"Of course you do." Indy, trying to smooth things over, though he still looks as prickly as anyone else. "I don't suppose you'd care to hang around tonight and catch the son of a bitch?"

She smothers a laugh. Trust Indy to come up with the all-too-appropriate epithet. "That shouldn't be a problem." She glances at the table where Indy was working, which looks little different from when she left. "What did he take?"

"Nothing that we can tell. But who knows? Maybe he's just here to case the joint before he brings in a crowd of hyenas."

"Hyenas don't thrive in this climate."

"What, you're a biologist now?"

"Oh, give it a rest, Jones." She reaches past him and pours herself a glass of whatever's in the pitcher; at this point she doesn't care what it is. Fortunately it's orange juice and not whatever Alexandre is nursing. "You climbed up a fifty-foot representation of Sobek and kicked it through a wall last time you were here; for all you know, he's enlisting the crocodiles to get revenge."

Indy snorts. "Right. Have it your way."

"You think the gods are angry?"

"No, Marion, I think someone wants to scare the hell out of us and I'm going nuts trying to figure out why."

"Who knows about the German boxes we found?" It's a fair question.

"The bank, and the authorities. The Reichsmarks are in a safe-deposit box." Alexandre manages a careful nod. "With official approval, of course. I made a bid to have the cache treated as a spoil of war, and therefore available to whoever finds it, and that's being considered. It's not all that much money now, not with the exchange rate, but even if it's not official currency some collector will think it's worth something, I'm sure."

"And the other box?"

Alexandre points under the table. "Safe. I've had the men working to excavate the third area you pointed out, as well as starting preliminary work to uncover the Well of Souls. I still have hopes that something is in there."

"Besides snakes and a smashed Sobek? Oh, don't worry, there were two or three others still there; at least one has to be in good shape." She adds hastily, "I'm not going in there, by the way. That one's yours. You can have all the snakes you want."

"Snakes don't bother me," Alexandre says calmly. "I'm just not fond of jackals."

She glances at Indy and notices that he's attached the old blacksnake whip to his hip, just as in the old days. "You getting back in practice swinging that thing, Jones?"

"Yeah." He's smiling. "Nice to know I haven't lost that."

Hmm. His eyesight must be improving. She wonders, not for the first time, if the blindness was psychosomatic, something that might go away when he remembers everything. She finishes her juice and puts the glass down. "I'm going to go see what's happening with the digging."

When she's a few tents away she glances back and sees them arguing, earnestly. She can't help smiling; they're acting like Sulla and Fayah, fussing at each other, and probably don't even realize it. She doubts most of the men here realize it either; if they do, they are shrugging it off as the behavior of foreigners and infidels, which is always inexplicable.

* * *

Night.

She turns out the oil lantern in her tent.

Anyone looking in would think she was asleep. She's good at arranging old Nazi uniforms under the sheets to look like something else. At least they're useful that way.

She's in black again, with her hair tied low on her neck so it won't swirl into her face and distract her. Her face and hands are darkened with charcoal. Her feet are covered in soft slippers, the local version of moccasins, to disguise her footprints. They'd be no protection from snakes, but she's not hunting a snake tonight.

She finds the place where she will watch, a rise near the Map Room from which she can see the paths through the camp -- and the ways that shadows move in them with or without a breeze disturbing the old torches. The torches remind her of the ones she used long ago to keep away the asps and the cobras, but these won't go out; they've been well doused with paraffin and lamp oil. They burn steadily, though not brilliantly. If nothing else, they delineate the shadows she watches.

And she settles in, her back to the wall, sheltered by the rock itself.

A nightingale sings, somewhere off to the side, beyond where they've been digging, where small scrub bushes lurk near the side of a low dune.

The wind moves slowly, if at all, only enough to stir the sand on the hard-beaten paths occasionally.

Something moves in the shadow, at the edge of the dig. She stares. A dog? It's on all fours.

It darts behind something larger than itself, and doesn't return.

Jackal, her mind tells her, but the back of her head is thinking in American terms for no good reason and murmurs _coyote_. Trickster who tells truth, but not all of it.

Something else moves, on the other side of the camp. It's walking on two legs from the Well of Souls down the side of the dune, toward the tents. She can't see the outline well, only the general shape and the certainty of its movement, as if it owns the land it walks on.

She's downwind from it, regardless. She slides down from her perch, rolls to her feet and runs, keeping the newcomer in her sight. She can hear other footsteps moving as well, rushing toward the same target.

A brilliant light flashes at it, and it stops in its tracks. She's only a few yards away; she can see the muzzle, and the broad headdress like the one on Tutankhamun's mummy case. She yells in Arabic, "Stop!" and it turns toward her in the light, which now shines steadily.

It's far taller than she is, and is dressed as if it were one of the old gods, in the folded linen kilt and gilded belt, and sandals. It's not a ghost, it makes tracks she can see. It's holding a walking staff, and she slows to a stop outside what she thinks is the range of that staff, if swung. Her knife is little defense against it.

All this in a second's viewing, before she hears Alexandre order it to hold still and reveal its name. Alexandre is speaking Arabic. Then she hears Indy repeat the order -- in Egyptian, in the old tongue.

She remembers the flashlight at her hip and switches it on, straight into the intruder's face. The staff flashes out; she feels it hit her and she's down on the sand, dizzy.

And then she passes out.

 

### XX

Her head hurts.

Voices swirl around her, above her. Noise, feet running, a hard thump that she can feel through the ground. And a foot thudding into her hip as someone trips over her.

Swearing in Arabic. Movement, and dizziness. More upset voices, in other languages. She doesn't want to have to think enough to figure them out.

The voice that cuts through the thick fog in her mind is the last one she expected to hear.

"Maryon. Wake up, please."

She's picked up, partly, her head loose on her neck; she's cradled against a muscular chest, as a soft deep voice speaks over her head, the sound muffled in her hair and by the heartbeat that she hears, quickened beneath her ear.

"Maryon." Careful fingers search her head and find a sore spot, and the immediate pain of that touch makes her moan and mutter.

"Ow." Her eyes open. "Katanga?"

"It seems I can't leave you for even a few days without trouble finding you." But Katanga's voice is gentle. "Wake up. You have a concussion. Wake up!"

"Wha' happ'n'd?"

"You met Anubis, or so it would seem."

"Oh, yeah." So it wasn't a dream. She's still not awake enough to think about that.

A cool, wet cloth is on her face, and this brings her around. She's on the rug in the office tent, cradled on Katanga's knees, and as she looks around she sees Dr. Henry Jones and his son together as if they'd never been apart.

Indy, as she half-expects from hearing him, is interrogating a man who looked Egyptian, who wears the linen kilt but looks much less impressive without the full-head mask. The man, who is tied to one of the few chairs, glares back at him and says nothing.

Henry is examining the full-head mask itself, with an expression of disgust. Alexandre intercepts his attempt to toss the mask out of the tent.

"It's a work of art."

"It's a fake, lad. And a poor one at that." Henry, in his element, isn't shy.

"I still think there's something to learn from it." Alexandre smiles hopefully, and Henry hands it over, shaking his head. Henry's always hated fakes, she remembers.

Indy, meanwhile, is muttering in street Arabic, which seems to surprise their captive. When Indy says something about the bazaar near the mosque, a torrent of words escapes the prisoner. She catches only a few of them, but everyone's head turns as they hear it.

"My, my. Such language." Henry shakes his head in reproof.

"Yeah, but it does tell us where he stands, or sits." Indy leans back in his chair. "Alex, send someone to call the police, and tell them we've got one of their anarchist ringleaders here."

"Anarchist is not precisely the proper term, since classic anarchists tend also to be atheists." Henry switches into full teaching mode. "This man is an Islamicist."

"This man is part of the group that wants to blow up the government buildings," Indy retorts. "And I don't want to let him do that."

"But why is he here?" Katanga's voice echoes in her ear. "This dig has no more to do with the government than any other dig, and there are archaeology teams all over the Valley of the Kings."

She glances at Alexandre, who shakes his head, and at Indy, whose expression shows he is not, yet, reconciled to the secrecy that has surrounded him. "He's trying to scare us off. What's he hiding?"

"Good question, Marion." And Indy turns back to ask more questions in Arabic, receiving angry responses. She can't follow it all, it's too fast, too much. It sounds like every political speech she's ever heard.

Henry crouches near her. "Marion, my dear. Are you all right?"

"Bit of a headache. Did they tell you what we found in the priests' chamber?"

"Yes, yes, and from what this fellow's saying there's more in another chamber nearby that they've been using to store explosives." He reaches for the water. "Here, drink a little."

Katanga stacks a few cushions behind her and she sits up and sips t he water cautiously. Her head is still throbbing, and she still feels out of connection with the world, but her mind is clear, as if she's seeing everything from a great distance. "Alexandre. Alexandre... " He's concentrating on the prisoner; he may not even hear her. "Alex!" she almost yells, interrupting the prisoner's  
diatribe. The man says something nasty, and Indy leans out to slap his face hard. The prisoner's head rolls on his neck; his lip is split but he spits out a curse in Indy's direction and ducks back again.

She doesn't know why, but she says, "Ask him about the jackal. The real one."

Indy frowns in her direction. "You mean the four-legged kind?"

She nods, then winces. "I saw one over there," she points, "sniffing around, looking the place over." She eyes the prisoner, and says in Arabic, "What about the other jackal?" The inference is clear from the word she uses, the slang that means scavenger.

The prisoner shifts in his chair, eyeing her uncomfortably. "What jackal?"

"The one at the other end of the camp."

Now he's worried, spooked, and she knows they're onto something.

"What's over there?" Indy takes up the questioning again. "Nothing? Maybe we should just take you over there and leave you there for a while -- there's nothing to harm you, is there?"

She'd forgotten just how evil Indy's smile can be when he wants it to be.

Something has clicked in the man's mind; he's not struggling with his bonds any more, but his voice has dropped the roughness. He's pleading not to go there, not to be taken there, for he will surely die ...

Alexandre nods, his mouth a set line. "We will dig there today."

Katanga, who has been standing nearby, a calculating look on his face, says, "Give me a shovel, and someone to hold the lamp. Whatever is there, I don't think it's deep." He jerks his head toward the man in the chair. "And he'll show us the way."

She tries to stand, but drops to her knees. "I'm coming with you."

"You aren't well, Marion." It's Henry, and he's kind, and he's right, but that's not the point.

"I can hold a lamp, can't I?"

"You and me both, kid." Indy smiles at her, turns back to the man in the chair. "You're going to take us there, now. And you're going to show us what's hidden there." He cuts across the prisoner's babble about the Eater of Souls. "If you don't help us, we'll just leave you there for him." And the terrified prisoner agrees.

Henry steadies her on her feet. "Are you sure?"

She nods. The pain isn't as bad; it's down to a low headache now, and as long as she doesn't stare into the light she'll be fine. Or move suddenly. Or turn her head at an angle.

Alexandre pulls the prisoner up from the chair, His pistol is aimed at the prisoner's heart. "Show us. Now."

 

### XXI

The breeze before dawn feels damp on her face and neck. She's still wearing the night-stalking garb, soft boots and all. Holding the lantern takes less effort than digging but gives her a good vantage point to see what's happening.

Katanga and Alexandre are digging together, working off the side of the narrow trail between hills where the sand has drifted in the last fifteen years to cover where work was done before. Indy, scowling, sits on a rock with a revolver in his hand, aimed with certainty at the prisoner. Henry is torn between keeping watch over all of them and looking out for the Cairo police, who  
have been expected for some time now.

Katanga's shovel strikes something hard. Under the sand, it's a wooden door. Aleandre frowns, and she can guess his thought -- there must be another way into this cache, whatever it is. Nobody could dig here unseen, or quickly, because of the direction of the sand. It's not deep, but it has compressed into something harder than usual to handle.

But they break down the door -- the prisoner winces -- and she hands the second lamp to Katanga.

"What's in there?" Indy, behind them.

"Many riches, if you enjoy explosions." Katanga laughs. "See for yourself." He takes the revolver from Indy, who balances on his crutches and goes to look into the opening.

Katanga rests the hand aiming the pistol on his knee, next to the prisoner's head. He's never taken attacks on his people well. She remembers what happened to a man in Tunis who had insulted her, and feels glad they're not in a port; like it or not, Katanga will have to obey local laws for once. The man at whom he's aiming should be glad he's nowhere near water, and that Ali and the rest aren't there to assist.

Indy's gazing into the gap. "Fuck."

"Junior! Language!"

"Sorry, Dad. But you've got to see this." He turns away from the gap. "Marion, remember those trucks you were aiming at from the Flying Wing, and the ammo dump? They must have put everything that was left in here, no matter how broken. Plus a lot more." Indy's shaking his head. "They're going to be really glad to see this down at the police station."

Alexandre takes his turn. "Hank. Did you notice the labels on the containers on the right?"

"What labels?"

"Nitroglicerine. And it's old. And it's stacked right next to the door."

"The door that we --"

"Broke open."

As one, they all move away from the opening, with extreme caution.

"How old?" Indy is chewing his lip again. His father frowns.

Alexandre considers. "The labels are older, and so is the typography. Perhaps First World War? Perhaps before that?"

"Why keep it here in the first place?" Henry still seems to be thinking in terms of the Eighteenth Dynasty, at the latest.

"It's out of the way. It's not in anyone's private house, so the only ones under suspicion will be us, the foreigners. And there's a lot of space in there." Indy moves back to tower over the prisoner. "But that room wasn't empty when you got here, was it? It was full of old things. Where did you put them?"

The prisoner spat, missing his foot by an inch. "The doings of heretics are of no interest to the faithful."

"Uneducated lout." It was Henry, muttering in Arabic, but the words were rougher than that. "You're no better than the Nazis. Where did you put what you found?"

"Who says I found anything?" It was insolence, not bravado.

Katanga slid the muzzle nearer, so it rested at the back of the prisoner's neck, cold metal on hot skin. "You were saying?"

The man gulped, trying not to move. "Another room, smaller, over there." He pointed with his chin.

The Well of Souls.

Indy's chuckle is as dry as the sand. "Seems like old times, doesn't it?"

She groans, in spite of herself.

* * *

An hour later the police arrive and, upon seeing what was hidden in the cache, call for backup, including the bomb squad from the nearest army base.

Before they arrive, she falls asleep in intervals, wakened each hour by someone, given water, and allowed to fall asleep again.

It is hard to tell what is a dream and what is not.

The men in mufti, emptying the cache of decrepit armaments, stolen rifles and machine guns,and case after case of ammunition, and swearing under their breath at the weight and heat, are real. So are the quieter men who walk past, sweating, carrying clear glass jars of something that looked like water, which they treat with the tender care that Indy gave the little faience box.

The small furry face she sees, at intervals, looks worried. The jackal whines and cries, nosing at her shoulder, as if it were a pet trying to wake her.

But when she wakes there is no jackal, not even hesitant small footprints in the sand. The crystal eyes on the mask in the next tent, which she can glimpse under the low canvas, look flat and uninteresting.

She rolls over, drinks the rest of the water that has been left for her, and falls back asleep.

And still hears something running on four slender legs, talking, whimpering, insisting that she come. Pleading with her to awaken and follow.

* * *

Night again.

She's finally awake, and alert enough to search for jackal tracks. but the footprints of the police and soldiers have tramped over anything that might be there.

Someone has left more water in a covered pitcher, with a glass, and a small covered dish of food. She suspects it's Alexandre; Indy might think of it but wouldn't remember to do it. Henry would forget to eat completely -- for days at a time -- in the presence of antiquities, though he was good enough at suggesting she eat when she was a child.

She's not a child now. From her aches and pains, she feels far too old. But after she eats the couscous with chicken and drinks the water, and visits the 'necessity' in its own tent, she feels well enough to try something she thought of while she was half-awake.

Nobody is around. From the noise, the men are all working near the Well of Souls; they've set up lanterns and torches, and the light spilling from them is illumination enough for her to walk around the camp with only the small flash. It should be safe, tonight, now that the radical whom they caught is safely in jail and his weapons cache has been emptied. She shivers, thinking of the  
nitro; she's never been comfortable with explosives.

She picks up a walking staff, slips a knife into her belt, and walks over to where she waited the night before. In the shelter of the hillside near the Map Room she sits down, rubs her face once, opens her eyes and gazes across the camp.

There it is. Over there, off the side of the hill, the little jackal. It's on its hind legs, as if it were dancing, and it's singing. And it seems to be singing to her, aiming its muzzle in her direction, watching her with anxious liquid eyes.

She slides down the hillside, her eyes on the animal tonight instead of on its human impersonator, and goes cautiously toward it.

Rabies isn't unknown here, but it's rare and it seldom comes this season. She grips the staff in her hand, steeling herself to strike with it if necessary.

But the jackal, the size of her San Francisco landlady's pet mutt, whimpers at her and starts off across the sand, peering back at her over its shoulder to make sure she's following.

She still has no idea why it would come to her. The only pet she's ever had in Egypt, more or less, was that monkey that showed up and rode on her arm, years ago, and it wasn't hers to begin with.

They are at the edge of the light, now. She switches on the flashlight, the moon has already set.

More whimpers, ahead. And then she sees what the jackal has brought her to see -- its pups,caught behind what looks to be rotting wood, unable to escape before they might starve.

The wood seems to be emerging from under a sand bank, near the radio tower that blew up when she was playing with an aircraft gun a lifetime ago. It looks as if the jackal's den may have been dug in just enough that a slight vibration -- such as the rumble from the trucks that took away the arms cache -- would make the hardened sand break through.

The jackal is crying. She's trying to dig, but the more she digs the more the sand falls on her pups, who scrabble frantically at the wood.

There's no time to consider that this may be the stupidest thing she's ever done. She pushesthe staff in between the boards and leans against it, using as much of her weight as she can against the old wood. The staff bends and complains, but stays whole; the boards resist but finally break with a loud crack. One pup manages to climb out over the splinters; the second one seems afraid to try. The gap is still too small for the mother jackal to get in.

"Stand back," she tells the jackal as she repositions the staff and leans again. This time the lowest board breaks in two places, and she pulls it out with the end of the stick. Two more jackal pups emerge, to be sniffed all over by their mother, who is frantic with joy.

She hadn't expected to do that much work. Suddenly she's exhausted. She slides down on her heels to crouch next to the place she's opened up, and hopes like hell that there aren't any snakes around as she doesn't feel like moving for a while.

The mother jackal edges near to her and looks her over, then darts into the hole. She brings something out in her mouth and drops it next to the flashlight, jumps over the flashlight to lick her hand once. The pups swarm happily over her legs and feet, playing games with the ties on her soft boots. And then they're gone, all of them, dancing away between the sand dunes, tails held  
high and happy.

She hopes they've got another den that won't collapse, and good food nearby. The whole situation still seems strange -- why would it look for her, in particular? But she'll think about that later.

She reaches for the flashlight, and pulls it and the jackal's offering over closer. It seems to be a cup of some kind.

And she falls asleep, leaning back against the dune, with the cup in her hand.

 

### XXII

"Marion."

Someone is patting her face with large, warm hands. She feels too comfortable to wake up.

"Marion!"

The hands are less gentle, and she responds with a groan. "What?!"

Indy is sitting next to her on the sand, his crutches lying nearby. He's checking her over anxiously. "Why did you disappear? We've been looking for you all night."

"'m sorry. Jackal wanted me."

"The jackal wanted you?" He looks confused, but not as confused as she expected.

She nods. "A jackal came in and woke me, so I went to see what she wanted. Her pups were caught inside there --" she gestures toward the hole in the side of the dune, "so I dug them out, and she brought me this." She brings up the cup, to show him.

She must have slept a long time; the sun is rising. The early light spills into the cup in her fingers and it glows warm and golden. It's studded with cabochon jewels in candy colors, red and green and purple and a striped, smoky gray like a pearl, and its beauty makes her gasp.

Indy is frankly staring at it. When his hand comes up to touch it, the touch is reverent. "Let me get this straight. The jackal gave you this?"

She nods, and is pleased to note that her head doesn't hurt quite as much as it had earlier. "She was saying thanks. She went back in and dropped it in my lap." It still sounds so strange to say. "I don't understand why she came after me. Jackals aren't tame."

Indy's face -- was he blushing? "Um, well, I was feeding a half-starved jackal pup last spring. She had a hurt leg and couldn't hunt. I took care of her until she was better, and then she ran off."

"I don't look anything like you," she protests.

"I take a nap in that tent fairly often, and I was staying in it when I fed her." But his eyes trail back to the amazing thing in her hands, and he says,"Where did she get it?"

"In there." She points with the walking stick, and uses it to nudge a broken board. "I don't know why we didn't look there before."

He's shaking his head in disbelief. "Because we thought that was just a pile of junk the Germans bulldozed to clear the area for the runway. It wasn't supposed to be anything. But this, this cup, this is something."

He's so excited, so amazed, and the light is pouring over them warm as honey and as sweet as his smile, and she puts an arm around him and he leans in and kisses her. It's as if they were back in that tent, fifteen years ago, when he found her and knew they were both alive and well. She'd remembered that kiss, even though he'd left her to the kindness of Belloq and the inquisitor afterward.

It's a kiss like the sunshine that pours over them, warm and golden, and reflects the light in that cup they both hold.

And when she draws back from that kiss she can see Alexandre coming, a hundred feet away, between the hills, and with him is Katanga. And, behind them but gaining speed, Henry Jones.

"Junior, do get off the girl and let her get up," Henry says, and at this Indy offers her a reluctant grin. She can't help giggling; it feels as if they were young kids caught necking by their parents.

* * *

She's still toying with the cup, running her fingertips over the elaborately chased leaves and flowers, into which the rounded jewels were set, several hours later. Now she's sitting in the shade of a new tent pitched where she had been sitting before, so that they can keep an eye on the cache the jackal showed her.

Alexandre is getting ready to go in, with two trusted diggers as backup -- Muhammad has been placed in charge of the excavation at the Well of Souls, and is to report on what he finds when the chamber is opened, and whether it can be entered without further bracing.

Katanga, his face neutral, is sitting with her, watching Alexandre and Indy, who is talking a mile a minute with advice and cautions, as if Alexandre had never gone into a building in his life. When Henry chimes in with his observations, Alexandre looks fit to be tied. To distract herself, and to keep from giggling again inappropriately, she asks, "What happened when Indy met his father again?"

A slow smile crosses Katanga's face. "That was a sight, to be sure. The eminent and reserved Dr. Henry Jones embracing his son, thanking the gods that he had been restored to him, and Dr. Jones the younger patting him on the back and asking his thoughts on the excavation plans. That was it. They were bickering as if they'd never been apart." He shrugs, suddenly as Gallic as Alexandre. "Not terribly sentimental, I'd think."

"No." She nods slowly. "I'm sorry I missed that."

"It could not be helped. I'm pleased that you're feeling better today." A neutral tone again though a warmer one; she knows that sound, but it's not the time for her to do anything. He wouldn't listen to anything she'd say, not yet.

* * *

She has managed to wash, quickly, and change her clothes before Nikami arrives to greet her. He looks happy and healthy, and any worries she might have had about leaving him with Henry in France are gone.

"How are your stories?" she asks him.

"They are good, Maryon. It pleases me to see you again." He hugs her unselfconsciously and then backs away a step, shy again. "I have heard you were walking with the jackal."

Knowing Nikami and his tales, this could mean anything. "You might say that," she considers. "Is that a bad thing?"

"No, no, it is a way to wisdom. And I have brought you something, a small something, nothing of importance." He holds out a bracelet for her, decorated in zigzag patterns. "I found this in the bazaar today for you. See, here are the footsteps of the jackal, and the trail of its tail wiping out its tracks." She's touched, and holds out her arm to slide the bracelet on. "You see, Maryon, it is a talisman to give you both the ability to follow the jackal and to hide your own footsteps."

"Then it must be very valuable," she murmurs. The bracelet is brass, and looks old, though she knows that many of the handmade bracelets from the tribes look far older than they are. For all she knows it could have been forged over a tin-can fire in the market last week.

"In money, no; such are not valued. But in luck, it is precious. And I wanted to thank you for sending me to Dr. Jones."

And for the next hour she listens as he tells her his impressions of France and archeology and the strange ways of people who do not live on ships or in the clan families of his people. He is still curious, still intrigued by newness, but he has learned much of the larger world outside their ship, and she's glad of that. It will help him find a place if ...

But she doesn't want to think of that now.

 

### XXIII

She gets in a few hours sleep at Sulla's before they arrive that night, full of plans and ideas and suggestions. It's just as well; she feels as if she's been run over by a tank that stopped and backed up again. Fayah takes one look at her and shushes the grandchildren, telling them they can show her the new kittens later; when she wakes, hearing the muezzin call at sunset, a covered tray of food sits by her bed and clean clothes are laid out for her across the chair.

"It wasn't necessary, Fayah, really," She has put on the clean galabiah, the loose robe with the elegant applique work around the neck and down the sleeves.

"Oh, yes it was. You were exhausted, and your clothes ... " Fayah shakes her head as she works at cutting vegetables for the evening meal. "These men. They have eyes only for gold and not for us. So you found a gold cup. That is a great thing, of course, but you are still more  
important than the cup is."

She takes up a knife and starts to cut up the tomatoes and peppers. "Maybe now things will be more normal, since they can organize the dig around this."

"Do you want to stay on and help with it? You are welcome to continue staying here as long as you wish, my friend."

"I ... don't know."

Fayah hands her a towel for her hands. "It is a matter of no importance whatsoever. The house is yours to come and go as you wish; you know this."

"If I go --" She breaks off, not knowing what to say.

"Don't worry. It will work out, insha'allah."

She can't argue with that.

* * *

She feels restless, uncomfortable, too enclosed. She takes her coffee up to the rooftop and sits under the pergola with its shading vine, just to feel the breeze against her skin and to not have to think about the future.

When Henry Jones sits in the next chair, she nods politely but closes her eyes again, just to feel the late-afternoon sunlight against her eyelids.

"I missed you out at the dig," he says. "So did Indy and Alex."

"Henry, don't kid a kidder. Once you saw that treasure trove, you were as eager as they were to see what was inside." He makes an offended noise that reminds her of a camel, but she manages not to smile. It would offend him, and he's too good a friend. "Why aren't you out at the site?"

"I'm staying here. It was thought my 'ancient bones' wouldn't do well out in a tent any more." Annoyance is plain in his voice. "Still, there are benefits to it, such as sitting with a beautiful woman."

Now her eyes open, and turn toward him. "Henry! Are you flirting with me?" And he smiles, and yes, he certainly is flirting with her, to her surprise.

"Do you mind?"

"Not at all. It's just a bit of a surprise. I didn't think you noticed me that way."

He sighs, and pats her hand. "All right, enough of that. I'm just keeping in practice. It's clear that I'll need a beautiful young wife if I'm ever to have grandchildren. I won't get any from Junior, that's for sure."

She hadn't thought he'd noticed. "Are you that sure?"

"Marion, in your own words, don't kid a kidder. I've seen how Junior looks at you, and if he hadn't gone missing I was hoping for you as a daughter. But that's not how the world has worked out, is it. And, forgive me, but he doesn't look at you that way any more, does he?"

She shakes her head. "I'm someone he used to know, someone he still cares for as a friend, but that's all. Alexandre is the light in his heart."

"So can you blame an old man for seeking a little comfort?"

The rogue. Suddenly the story about the Nazi woman who had disappointed both of them takes on a broader meaning.

"I hope you're not looking to me for those grandchildren, Henry. I very much doubt that would happen." She turns away reluctantly. This isn't a conversation she wants to have. "It's me, not you."

His warm hand holds hers, and when she looks back she can see the sadness in his eyes. "I'm sorry. May I ask what happened?"

He's a friend, probably the only real link to the part of her life that existed before Nepal other than his son, whom she can't talk to any more. She owes him honesty. "Thirty-six hours on a U-boat with Rene Belloq -- Alex's father -- and his thugs, and a couple of those diseases that aren't spoken of in polite society. By the time I was well again, I'd lost my chances ..."

Henry's face has turned to stone, the profile of a granite sphynx. "Belloq may be glad that he's dead, then. I'd have no mercy on him." His usually mild accent thickens, and his voice is harsher than she's ever heard. "The things I've seen and heard, these past years..."

"It was a long time ago, in another life." She turns her hand over to clasp his. "And I do appreciate the thought, but isn't all this seriousness interrupting our flirtation?"

"So it is, so it is." And he's Henry again, not that hard man she glimpsed who so resembled his son in anger. "I could, of course, continue by telling you how much you look like certain carvings I've seen, or that the medieval troubadours should be here to sing to your eyes."

"And I should ask whether you've been reading too much of the Arthurian legend lately." Her voice is light, and it seems to reassure him, for he pats her hand once more and releases it in order to refill her cup and his own from the coffeepot on its tiny brazier.

"Actually, no. I haven't read that one in years. We did find the Grail, Junior and I, back in '36, but it was lost in an earthquake in Petra."

She nodded. "So Indy said."

"I don't mind, though. How many men can say they've achieved what they dreamed of all their lives? I held the cup in my hands; I drank from it, and so did my son. That's enough."

The sun is setting behind the Pyramids, the light changing as she watches it, shadows chasing each other over whitewashed walls.

"It's beautiful." She sips her coffee, and notices that it's not bitter even at this strength. She tells herself to ask Fayah which coffee vendor she goes to in the market.

"No more beautiful than you are, my dear." He is quiet for a moment. "It hasn't escaped my notice that you're unhappy."

She can't help the sigh. "More uncertain than unhappy."

"Even so. I want you to know that you have options, perhaps one or two you hadn't considered."

For one blinding brief moment she thinks he's proposing, and loses her mind in the thought of becoming Indy's stepmother. In the following moment she realizes he means something else, but she asks, just to be certain, "With you?"

"I have enough work to do for six men, not just for myself and Nikami and that pesky secretary that the University foisted on me. If you want to do something else than what you do now, there is a job for you. If you simply want to get away, come find me." He smiles, and this  
time there's no flirting, only honest friendship. "There are still places in the world that I haven't seen, and I've always preferred to travel with friends."

"You are a good, kind man, and I'll remember that." She leans over to kiss him on the cheek and meets his lips instead. The kiss is warm but not passionate, the affection of an old friend, and she accepts it as such and smiles at him afterward. "We'd best go down to dinner."

He rises and holds her chair for her, the old-school gentleman to the core. "I'll say it once only, my dear: Junior is an idiot."

And they both laugh as they head for the stairs together.

 

### XXIV

After the meal, as she sits in the family room among all the cushions, playing with children and kittens, she can't help but think about what Fayah and Henry have offered, and what others have not.

She speaks enough languages to find work as a translator again. Much of it would be bureaucratic now and not allow her to travel, but she is sure Henry could introduce her to any number of people who would just happen to need a capable and intelligent translator to travel  
with them. And she won't deny the excitement she feels at that thought.

She could also stay here, as a teacher, working in Cairo, living with Sulla and Fayeh. She knows this city, she knows the language and the people, and the University here has advertised for a multilingual teacher to work with new students from other countries. It's possible. She's not sure how long she'd be comfortable in this land, having to dress conservatively and stay clear of the Islamic hard-liners who would beat her for wearing trousers or a fedora.

She could, in fact, go nearly anywhere, if she could choose a place to go.

* * *

She is sitting with a lap full of sleepy kittens, all fur and tiny sharp yawns. when the men come from the site. Seeing her, they come to sit in the room full of pillows. They're relaxed, tired, but happy, and they've brought more things for her to see.

Indy, ruined legs propped with cushions to keep the muscles from locking, hands her the cup, which she passes on to Fayah, and reaches into the pack sitting beside him. Fayah raises her eyebrows at the cup, and hands it on to Sulla.

"I thought you'd like to see some of what you found," Indy says.

"You found a lot?"

"Way more than I expected. It looks like the Germans never went that far into the place. They looked in, decided it might be good for storing fuel or engine parts, and boarded it up when they were done. The jackal must have burrowed way into the back to find that cup." Indy glanced at Alexandre. "It took a while for anyone larger than a jackal to get there."

Alexandre groaned. "I'd swear we used up three days' worth of water washing the grease off before coming here."

"Enough about the grease," Sulla puts in. "The treasure?"

"Like I said, it took a while. Looks like some of the larger pieces were a bit delicate, but well worth the effort." Indy takes a soft well-wrapped package out of the pack and hands it to her.

It's heavier than it looks, and she fumbles, trying to keep from dropping it on sleeping kittens. "What is it?"

"Open it. Here." He unties the cords holding the cloth together, and it falls away from a golden flower like a lotus, whose petals cup what seems to be a place for a candle. The lotus stem is broken off, the edges rough.

"It's part of the great candelabrum that goes with the Ark, made of pure gold." Alexandre beams. "It's a tremendous find."

"May I examine that more closely?" Henry asks, with an odd note in his voice. He's sitting at the far edge of the group, near the door, and she passes it back to Indy to hand to Sulla to give to him. When it reaches Henry, he stares at it as if it were the answer to a lifetime's questions. He turns it over, moves it in his hands, plays with the lovely independently moving petals, all the  
while with an expression on his face that looks as if he were going to weep.

"Dad. What's wrong?" Indy's noticed it too.

"Just a moment, Junior." And Henry hands the golden lotus blossom back, gets up and leaves the room.

Everyone is looking at everyone else for clues, and no face shows an answer. Fayah nods to her and rises to follow.

But Henry is back, very quickly, carrying a package that she remembers wrapping in newsprint and brown butcher paper long years ago. It's been opened since then, rewrapped, unwrapped, and now as Henry sits he takes out the wooden box it has held for more than a  
decade.

"That's not the first golden flower I've seen." Henry's voice shakes. "This is."

He sends the box, in its papers, along the chain of hands, to Indy.

"What --"

The back of her throat makes a small, unhappy noise that she can't swallow. "When you disappeared ..." No good. She tries again. "When you disappeared in 1942, I went to North Africa to look for you. I found your hat, and your whip --"

Her voice has almost vanished.

"-- and that box."

The wood is stained dark, as if the blood on it had soaked in to remain forever.

"I gave it to Marcus, as you would have wanted."

Indy's hands are hesitant. He squints at the box, shakes his head.

"What is it?" Alexandre is concerned.

"I -- I'm remembering something. A man. Men. German soldiers. Thugs." Indy's breathing has gone ragged. "They beat me, for hours. They said I was a spy." His face has lost all color.

Fayah, in the doorway, takes one look at him and brings in a bottle and glass. "Restorative cordial. Drink."

Indy takes a sip and chokes, briefly, but nods and fends off concern and drinks the rest quickly. The box lies on his lap. "You opened it, right, Dad?"

Henry nods. "Of course. It was the last thing anyone had of you. I'm only sorry I was out of touch for so long or I would've had it sooner. I only received it the morning I left to come here."

"I asked Marcus's successor to send your things to your father," she murmurs. "He must have put them on a military plane to get them to France so quickly."

"They came in the diplomatic pouch, actually," Henry says. "Marcus had many connections. What else do you remember, son?"

"I got into North Africa on a merchant ship -- not Katanga's, I couldn't find him in time -- and went in Bedouin robes to -- I don't remember where, maybe it doesn't have a name -- a place in the Atlas Mountains where I'd heard the Nazis had hidden a cache of treasure from the Nile. I knew it had to have something to do with the Ark; they wouldn't take that trouble for anything an Egyptologist would want. I could only take a few things -- I didn't have a camel or a truck -- so I put what I could in that one box and headed out again." He is tracing the bloodstains on the wood with a fingertip. "They caught up with me a day and a half before I was due to leave."

Indy slides the latch-stick out of its place and stops. "This really should be yours, Alex. You open it." He pushes the box toward Alexandre, who takes it on his own lap and tips the lid back.

Her breath sticks in her throat. It's another perfect lotus, blossom and candlestick only, without the delicate stem. Beside it are what look like sticks or tools, also in gold and jewels, and under it, wrapped in faded rags, is something flat, filling the bottom of the box.

"The urim and thummim," Alexandre breathes. "And --"

"The high priest's breastplate. I think that might make your backers happy." Indy's wearing that crooked smile she's loved since she was fifteen. It doesn't matter that it's aimed at someone else. "It's a lot prettier than any fake I've ever seen."

She is entirely forgotten, sitting there with a warm lap of kittens.

When she can, she moves the kittens down to nestle on a soft cushion, gets up and leaves. Fayah notices, but she waves Fayah back to take care of the others.

* * *

_Fin de siecle_, the close of the longest section of her life.

She stands on the roof, her hair blowing in the night breeze, and tries to remember a time before she knew Henry or Indy. She can't. And all the time she's known them, Indy has been looking for something that was bigger or better or prettier than she was.

And now, now that he's found it, now that he remembers who he is and can probably find that cave in the mountains on a map, he won't need her around any more.

It's not that she has merely been a means to an end, but that even as a means she has felt incidental, even though she has saved his life as much as he has saved hers.

It's not entirely a bitter thought, just an ending.

For a while, he loved her with as much intensity as he loved archeology and teaching. For a while they had a life together.

And as she realizes how very far away that time is, she lets herself feel the loss deeply one last time.

What she has wanted, in their life together, never managed to matter as much as what he wanted. And even after he disappeared, she was obeying his wishes.

Now it's time for her to do what she wants.

When she finishes crying.

A nightingale sings in the potted orange tree, the curling melody ageless in the Egyptian night. Surely Pharaoh's daughters heard the same bird as they felt the same breeze from the desert in late evening.

She falls asleep in a lounge chair, listening to the birdsong.

 

### XXV

When she wakes at dawn, to the sound of the muezzin calling the faithful to worship from the minaret eight blocks away, she feels as if she's a different person. Not a new one, just someone other than she's been for a long time. And, as a new person, she decides to go exploring.

Dressed in western tourist clothing, she wanders down into the market, buying fresh bread and fruit for breakfast, drinking coffee at a small stand near the souk, wandering through the streets to listen to the sounds and look at the geometric lacework of carved windows, the intricate carved doors, the million sounds and sights of the old city that have not changed in centuries.

* * *

"Oh, miss, miss, look here. Such fine things for you!"

She is already turning away when the golden flash catches her eye. "What's this?"

"Oh, miss has very good taste. This is old, very old, ancient -- I have authentic paperwork for it. It comes from the Valley of Kings." He holds it up for her to see.

Gilded wings curving away from the hawk body, up around the scratched crystal. She can't help the smile.

"But miss! For you, special price! Miss!"

She shakes her head and walks on, the genuine article nestled against her skin inside her shirt.

* * *

In time, everyone is a tourist. One can belong to a place, but cannot own it, because no one can always stay in the same place.

Where does she belong? To what land, to what people?

* * *

She sits in the garden of the small Coptic church, listening to the worshippers sing melodies and words that have not changed in two thousand years.

She puts on a headscarf in respect, and sits quietly in the women's section of a mosque, listening to the sound of air moving through the room, the murmured prayers, the sweep of clothing as people bow and prostrate themselves toward Mecca, itself a symbol of the Infinite.

She wanders through the Museum of Antiquities, gazing at exhibits of artifacts that she saw dug from the ground as a child, and older ones that were found or put on display by names she only knows by repute: Petrie, Budge, Ballard, Emerson. No, wait, she'd met Ballard once, at  
some event Abner had dragged her to. No matter. He'd been crazier than Abner, and one of them had been enough to deal with.

As the sun drops in the afternoon sky she considers where to go. It would be interesting, if a bit subversive, to go to Shepheard's for dinner, though she'd have to dress for it in something other than the dusty clothes she wears.

It's a long way back to her bedroom at Sulla and Fayah's house. The ship is closer.

* * *

Her cabin is just the way she left it, despite the trip to pick up Henry. Either he disturbed very little or else he slept in the small suite she and Katanga had fixed up for important clients who wanted to accompany their cargoes. If Nikami had had his way, it's possible that Henry stayed with the crew, telling them stories and listening to them in return.

Henry's not as shy as he used to be, or as quiet. Perhaps some of that is Nikami's influence. The thought pleases her.

She flips through the clothes in her narrow closet as she hears footsteps in the passageway.

"Wha- Sitt Maryon?" It's Ali, in the doorway.

"Yes, it's me, Ali. How are you?" She knows that's not enough to say.

He is checking her over, with the expression of a doctor who expects to see plague. "You are well? You have returned to us?"

"I am well."

No, the black dress still has that torn seam, where the fabric gave way. And the green one -- how did it get into that corner, so that she didn't see it when she wanted to wash it? She certainly can't wear it tonight.

"You have found work for us?"

"Soon. Dr. Jones will want to return to France; the time hasn't been decided yet."

He nods, satisfied that she is still thinking of them. "It is a good break for us, but we will want work soon."

She acknowledges this with a nod. "Where is Katanga?"

Her fingers brush gold silk, and she knows what she's going to wear and where she'll go with it. Shepheard's has a few quieter dining rooms and nooks. She'd like to just sit and watch, tonight, not be watched, but she knows she's going to want to look her best.

"He is out. Shall I send Omo or Rashid for him?"

"No, no. It's not important." She gives Ali the look that she reserves for times when the men don't understand a need for privacy, and he backs off with a nod and closes the door.

But when she opens it again, dressed in the gold silk, jeweled dagger hidden in her hair and a damask shawl around her shoulders, the hall is full of crew.

Ship's crews have few secrets, if any.

She smiles. They applaud, whistle, cheer.

"Ah. You are meeting the captain somewhere for dinner?" Omo asks.

"Not that I know of."

He puzzles it out. "You do not know if he is coming?"

"I have to go." She picks up a purse large enough to carry the smaller handgun that she acquired a few years earlier.

"You are meeting Dr. Jones?" someone else asks. A small scuffle breaks out in back, as the differences between the two Doctors Jones are thoroughly hashed out in a variety of languages.

"Quiet." Ali wields authority the way he wields a machete, with careful strength. "She is going to meet someone about work for us, obviously. This is an important matter."

They all murmur approval.

She gives up. It's easier. "If you want to help me, you could flag down a cab at the dock."

One of the youngest in the crew -- was it Soud? -- dashes down the passageway and up the ladder.

Omo is watching her with concern. As she passes him, he puts out a hand to stop her. "You are not leaving us, are you?"

She can't answer him in words, but pats his hand and keeps going. She can feel his emotion behind her like a small storm brewing on the edge of the horizon, with no way to know where it will go or what it will become.

* * *

At Shepheard's, as she expects, her dress gives her status that waives the need for a reservation, or an escort. Without the slightest hint of discourtesy or curiosity, they find her a seat in a corner where she can watch as she dines, and ignore politely the concept of a woman willingly eating alone.

The food tastes good, and she enjoys eating it, but that isn't the point. She's still not sure where she wants to be, what she wants to be, only of what she is not. And because she feels so displaced, she lingers over her dessert and coffee and the after-dinner drink that soothes the back of her throat. She doesn't want to have to think where she'll go from here.

Archeologists don't carry guns in their purses, if they carry purses, or knives in their hair. Pirates carry knives. Linguists don't usually carry anything but dictionaries and notepads. Bookstore clerks carry books, and order forms, and receipts.

She doesn't want to work in an office all the time, any office. Like Henry, she still has places she wants to see, though she wouldn't mind seeing some of them alone. Like Indy, she still has things she wants to know, but she doesn't want to spend her life digging them out of sand. Like Fayah, she knows she has a place to go if she wants one, or more than one, but unlike Fayah she isn't sure if she wants to stay there.

She is nearly at the bottom of the cordial glass when the waiter pushes aside the drape that half-screens her table from the wider room.

"Madam. Your dinner companion."

"What --"

"I apologize from the depths of my heart for the delay, but it was inevitable."

She blinks. She can't be seeing this.

"The party is waiting for you, Will you come?"

It's Katanga, immaculate in a European-style suit and tie, redefining the cliche of tall, dark and handsome. He holds out a hand to her.

"Party?" It's all she can manage to say.

"Yes. We are all waiting. I'm so sorry you were given the wrong address." Katanga is smiling, that sneaky grin that tells her something is up. "You look beautiful, as always. Shall we go?"

The waiter's air of carefully disguised amazement tips the scale for her. "Waiter, -- " she starts, but Katanga glances over the table, pulls a small roll of bills from his pocket and drops enough on the silver charger to cover the bill and a generous tip.

She shrugs and collects her purse and shawl, and takes his hand, and they leave together, every eye in the place on them, most with disapproval. She's sure they won't let her back in again alone, but she doesn't care. She can always find good food in a city.

"Where are we going?" she asks as they walk down the front steps.

"To the party." Katanga flags down a cab, which roars to a stop two inches from him. He helps her in and murmurs directions to the driver. "Did I not tell you? Everyone is waiting to see you."

"Everyone who?" She is suspicious of that smile.

"You do look truly lovely in that dress. I'm sure everyone will admire it."

"Katanga." She takes a firm hold on the armrest to keep from being thrown across the seat as the cab rounds a corner as if it were in an old Keystone Kops movie. "Tell me what is going on or I swear I'll shoot you."

He's laughing outright. "Go ahead, I'm sure someone will be able to repair the damage. All right, all right." He puts up a hand. "I did tell you that my family wanted to meet you, did I not? My grandmother has decided that since we have been together as partners for so long, we must have been married at some obscure time in the past, and she is determined to give us a proper wedding feast whether we want one or not."

Wedding feast!

"I have been telling her for a week that it is not appropriate or necessary, and that you and I are business partners, but she says she knows me better than that, and that it is time for me to bring you to meet everyone."

"Oh, lord." It's the only thing she can think to say. The appropriate expletives in six or eight languages have rushed from her mind in astonishment.

His expression is less certain now. "Unless..."

Katanga has never looked uncertain before.

"Unless what?"

"Unless you want to make it appropriate." He hurries on. "You know the life we lead. I cannot offer you much beyond that."

"Your family would expect --"

"They gave up their expectations of me long since. And my cousins and brothers have already had fifty children; I need not add more."

Katanga would never plead. He did not plead with the Nazis for her life, but defied them. Asking is not his way. She has thought, this past decade, that she has known as much about him as anyone could, but now she sees a plea in his eyes that she never expected.

And all the shuffling pieces of her life slide into place.

She puts her hand in his. "Then let's make it appropriate."

The taxi driver seems to smooth out the ride for the last part of the journey. Or perhaps the road is less hazardous. Either way, she's too busy to notice.

 

### Epilogue

When she wakes to the bright morning light several days later, she's still a little irked. She rolls over and tries to keep a straight face.

"You know, you could have told me," she says, Actually, she's annoyed with herself that she never put the pieces together.

"You knew that I'm related to some of the crew." Katanga is lying back in the bed, arms pillowing his head, his smile as bright as the hotel sheets.

"Related, huh." She pokes him in the chest, to hear him snicker. "They're all your brothers and cousins."

"Not all. Nikami is my nephew. And I thought you liked him, and them."

"I do. I like all of them. But I didn't realize they were checking me out for your grandmother. It would've been nice to be a little prepared to meet her, you know."

* * *

She hadn't expected Katanga's grandmother Anais to be as tall as he was, or as outspoken. Or as generous and welcoming at ten p.m. Most people she knew in Egypt kept early hours, except during Ramadan.

"My grandson tells me you have no family yet living." Anais has given her the place of honor and is handing her a cup of peppermint tea that smells wonderful. "I'm sorry for that. Family can be a great comfort -- as well as a great bother."

This last appears to be aimed at Katanga, who smiles back at her with perfect good will.

She sips the tea. "I have good friends who are like family to me."

Katanga sits nearby and accepts a cup of tea. "The two Dr. Joneses."

"Ah." Anais nods. "I have met this Dr. Jones the elder. He has been a good friend to us." At her surprise, Anais continues, "He has been very kind to my great-grandson."

"Nikami?"

"You did not know?" Anais turns toward Katanga. "You have surrounded this woman with family for how many years and not told her?" Her voice is soft but fierce. "I am not at all sure I should let you have even one piece of my good cake."

"Ama, please, I have already told you. Marion and I were business partners first, and one does not bring relationships into business in that way."

"You might have found time to mention it somewhere along the way. Ten years." But Anais turns back to her, eyes bright, and she knows the small blow-up is not serious. "I do not want to make you uncomfortable, but I want to be sure you know what you will be getting into with this rascal." She fixed him with an appraising look. "He is not my most reliable grandson."

"Now, Ama, you like me much better than you do Charles, admit it."

"Nothing of the sort. I must say, Maryam, I'm amazed that you've put up with him for so long."

"It's a struggle, I admit." Only after she says this, in the Arabic in which they have been talking casually, does she realize that the word for struggle is also the word for religious quest or holy war, jihad. "Sitt Anais --"

But Anais is laughing, and reaching forward to take her hand. "And so was his father, and his grandfather before him. Terrible trials, those men. I'm pleased that you are a woman of such good sense as to realize this."

She relaxes into the cushions with relief.

"And I have seen how my grandson looks at you, and I am pleased with that as well." Anais turns to Katanga, who straightens in his seat as if he were a child in school. "You will take care of this woman, or I will hear of it. And you will hear from me if I am displeased in any way with your treatment of her."

"Yes, Ama." Katanga is solemn.

"And you will take care of my rascal grandson?"

"Yes, Sitt Anais."

"Then I am well pleased." Anais raises her voice and says, "Let the celebration begin!"

And the doors open and the room fills with people and music and the aromas of wonderful food.

* * *

At some point in the evening -- she can never recall when -- the women of the house take her away for a rest, and to be made beautiful in the traditional way, with henna designs on her hands and feet. By this time the coffee is wearing off, and she falls asleep while they're painting on the henna mud, despite the happy chatter around her.

She's wakened gently, and given a cup of coffee, which tastes wonderful.

"You know, I'm going to have to be angry with my brother for not bringing you here before." This, from a small pretty woman wearing green and gold. "Very inconsiderate."

"I'll be annoyed at him with you," she tells them. "But he's never talked about his family at all. I would have loved to have known you all already."

Murmurs among the crowd. "It's not surprising. Simon quarreled with our father, who threw him out, and then he took away our brightest sons and brothers with him. Only when he became a success did our father remember that he had this son named Simon."

Simon. She has to remember that's what Katanga is called here, not Captain or Katanga or any of the nicknames she's heard, reputable or not. Here, he is Simon, the second son of the second wife of a man in another country whom she's never heard about.

"And what happened then?" she asks.

"Then they spoke again," a younger woman tells her. "And the rest of us were much happier. It made it so much easier to seat them at parties."

"You won't stay away like that, will you?" they ask her, and she says, no, she won't, and invites them to visit on the ship even as she's trying to figure out where she'd put them. But they're Katanga's family; if they want to come, they will be welcome.

The henna patterns are intricate, wild amazing flowers and vines swirling up her arms like long gloves. She turns her hands one way and another, admiring them.

* * *

She's not surprised, now that she knows the relationships exist, to see the entire crew there, feasting and dancing. Ali bows to her, mock-seriously, and sits down nearby.

"So, tell me -- how are all of you related?" She has to ask someone. Ali raises an eyebrow. "Who is Katanga's brother and who is his cousin and all that."

"You did not know?" Ali's amazement is comical. "But -- " He tries to look solemn, but lets a laugh escape. "You did know that Katanga's father had four wives, right? I am his brother by the third wife, and so is ..." He goes through the entire ship's roster, pointing out which of the crew are cousins and which are half-brothers or full brothers, and which are not at all related directly but  
were fostered by the family and are therefore relatives. "It's all family."

"That's why you weren't worried about Nikami staying with Henry Jones." It's becoming clearer.

"Of course we weren't worried. Dr. Jones is a good man."

"Yes, he is."

"What am I?" a deep voice says. She turns to find Henry and Indy there, as well as Alexandre.

"Family, every one of you." She gets up to greet them, Henry kisses her hand, with a courtly little bow.

Indy, not to be outdone, gives her his best little-boy smile and leans close to kiss her cheek. "You've got a good man," he whispers in her ear.

"I always get good men," she whispers back, and dares to add, "So do you."

Indy's eyebrows rise as he leans back on his crutches, but he is blushing.

"May I?" Alexandre comes forward to kiss both cheeks, very French, and to kiss her hand, but she pulls him in closer.

"Take good care of him, or you'll deal with me." she tells him quietly.

"I am shaking in my boots." But Alexandre is reaching behind him for a package. "For you." He places in her hands something heavy, well wrapped.

"Can't come to a wedding without a present," Indy says. "And it was already yours, anyway."

The jewels on the gold cup glow in the warm lantern light.

"But --" She's wordless, and crying, and can't help either situation. "Thank you."

"The jackal sends her regards, by the way," Indy tells her. "When we checked the cache just before we left, there were more things pulled out where we could get them."

"Only you would train a pet jackal as an archeologist."

"Not a pet, not at all. A colleague." It's Sulla, with Fayah, and the crowd of family from their house. "Indy finds colleagues everywhere."

"Fayah." And she's hugging Fayah, who murmurs comforting sounds into her ear.

"Did I not tell you everything would work out, Maryon? But you must come back, any time, any time." Fayah smiles at her and bestows a measured look upon Katanga. "You will both come back whenever you can, you understand."

Anais is beside her. "Are you listening, grandson? Your lady has more family than you expected, I think, and all of them will want your head if you treat her poorly."

"I have only the one head," Katanga says, "They may have to draw straws."

Anais shakes her head. "Someone who has studied higher mathematics will figure it out. Now, which grandson was that?"

"Never mind. If I displease you, lady, I give you leave to do as you wish with me." Katanga kisses her hand.

"Good. That's settled." Anais smiles at them, fondly. "And now we should eat."

* * *

Men and women do not dance together here, but in Anais's home they sit together as family. Nikami comes to sit near her. "For you." He hands her a small packet, pages in a notebook.

"What is it?" But she has a pretty good idea.

"Stories I wrote. Dr. Jones is arranging to get them published. I want you to have the originals."

"Are you happy working with Dr. Jones?" she asks, and he nods.

"And now we are all family. Life is good." Nikami smiles at her. "Here, have some couscous.  
Omo made it."

"Where is Omo?" She has been looking for him in the crowd, and has only glimpsed him once.

"Discussing spices with Ama in the kitchen." Nikami stops, with a look of intense concentration  
on his face. He reaches into a pocket, but stops.

"No, go ahead, write it," she tells him. "And you can read it to me later."

* * *

By the end of the three-day feast, she's sure she can't eat another shred of lamb or bite of cake. She's had several naps, as has everyone else, but the party has continued. As a way of moving from one phase of life to another, she thinks, it's a great improvement over tragedy.

She changes out of the gold dress the next day, into new comfortable clothes her new family has given her. It doesn't surprise her that her makeup kit has managed to appear by her bed, or that her most comfortable shoes are on the floor ready for her when she wakes up.

* * *

A week or so later, she is standing in the wheelhouse of the ship, going over charts and paperwork that she doesn't recognize. "What is this? Have you re-registered the ship again?" The old ship they'd been living on for more than a decade has had many names, and it has taken her a while to sort out the registry in the past.

"Yes and no." Katanga lounges in the doorway, watching her. "I have given her over, but she is still ours to use whenever we wish. I do not think you would object."

"Without telling me? What -- How --" She bites her tongue. "Where will we live?"

"Here, or there. Ali will be captain, and will run her with whatever crew don't want to come with us ... over there."

She follows the line of his pointing finger to another ship, a newer vessel that rides high in the water, freshly painted. This one is smaller, and she can't quite read the name at the bow. "This one is ours?" She recognizes one or two of the youngest crew aboard.

"No, this one is yours. A wedding gift from my family to you. Ama Anais likes you." He moves out of the doorway and puts his arms around her. "I figured it was time for us to have somewhere to live besides this old rust bucket, and you needed property in your own name. Besides, times are changing, and we make as much from transporting the contracts you bring us than from  
hauling coal or lumber or heavy goods. Also, if we are taking my sisters on cruises, or bringing the Joneses to Paris, we would want more cabin space for them."

"When will they go?"

"Fairly soon, I think; Henry said they have an appointment with a surgeon for Indy."

She nods. "He'll be impatient to get back to Egypt."

"We can always take him with us," he tells her. He hands her the binoculars. "Take a look."

When she realizes what she's seeing, she can't help smiling. "I don't suppose Sitt Anais chose the name."

"No, and she made me explain it to her, but she likes it."

"But Tanis didn't have a queen."

"It does now." Katanga nods toward the Queen of Tanis, where she can plainly see a carefully painted jackal wearing a winged gold necklace and dancing in place under the name on the bow of the ship.

**Author's Note:**

> As it should be clear, this was written before the Crystal Skull movie came out. No pirates were harmed in the making of this story, which has roughly the same amount of historical and cultural veracity as the movies. There are very small references to Stargate: SG-1 and Elizabeth Peters's Amelia Peabody novels.


End file.
